Overview
- After appeals from Ukrainian officials, SpaceX moved in early February to block unauthorized Starlink use by Russian forces operating on Ukrainian territory.
- The restrictions include auto-restarting terminals that exceed roughly 90 km/h for two minutes to disrupt drone use and a requirement that devices in Ukraine be formally registered to function.
- The Institute for the Study of War reported Ukraine retook about 200–201 square kilometers between Wednesday and Sunday, largely near Zaporizhzhia, and linked these gains to degraded Russian communications.
- Russia’s deputy defense minister acknowledged Starlink terminals have been inoperable for about two weeks but denied any impact on unmanned systems, contradicting Russian military bloggers who described frontline communication problems.
- Moscow is testing substitutes such as the Barrage-1 stratospheric platform and pursuing domestic satellites and tethered fiber-linked drones, though analysts say these options cannot quickly match Starlink’s low‑Earth‑orbit network.