Drone war! Starlink Blocking for Russian Military Gave Ukraine a Huge Boost

Russia’s drone campaign in Ukraine has been reduced by up to 40%, allowing Ukraine to regain territory after Elon Musk blocked Russia’s access to its Starlink satellite network, according to one of Ukraine’s frontline generals, Focus reports.

Brigadier General Andriy Biletsky, commander of Ukraine’s 3rd Army Corps, told The Independent that SpaceX’s influence in shutting down Starlink in areas of Ukraine now under Russian control was “huge“.

“After Starlink was blocked for the Russians, the level of "their effectiveness compared to ours has decreased dramatically, because Starlink is practically indispensable as a communication system during combat," he told the British media.

"Starlink can only be replaced by another Starlink. Therefore, Starlink's influence on the current course of the war is enormous. Over the past two weeks, the effectiveness of Russian strikes has deteriorated significantly, by about 20 to 40 percent."

Biletsky, founder of the "Azov" brigade and later the 3rd separate assault brigade, is a historian, right-wing agitator and veteran of the fighting in Ukraine since the Russian invasion in 2014, the British media wrote. He now controls about 12 percent of the 1,300-kilometer front line.

The forces he commands are concentrated in a few brigades in some of the fiercest parts of the front, where drone warfare has transformed the nature of the conflict into a 15-kilometer-wide “death zone” dominated by drones, where soldiers hide and move through the devastated terrain.

In recent weeks, Ukraine has regained territory around Pokrovsk, north of Liman, in its area of operations, and south, near Gulyaipole, after Russia was denied access to Starlink.

The small, laptop-sized Starlink devices are the backbone of communications on both sides. They are mounted on both larger drones and Russian "Shahed" and are used for all ground combat communications.

In Ukraine, SpaceX provided free terminals in the early stages of the defensive operation against the invading Russians. But while Russia quickly adopted the technology, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry now believes that Moscow has lost almost all the terminals it used in its operations.

Biletsky believes that the damage to Russia's capabilities could be long-term: "This is a great opportunity for Ukraine, and I think - this is a subjective opinion - that within a month or two [Russian forces] will partially regain their effectiveness using other means; Russian satellite communications, etc.

But they will never be able to fully restore the level of effectiveness that they had with Starlink in the foreseeable future. I don't think it's even three or five years.“

Is this a significant strategic blow to the Russians – with just the push of a button?

"Indeed“, continues Biletsky. "The Americans have an absolute advantage over any other army in the world right now – and that's Starlink.“

He added that if Ukraine also loses its Starlink connection, “we will be back at the same level as the Russians, as we were three weeks ago“.

But the satellite terminal saga shows how vulnerable modern armies are to individual systems, and how in a rapidly evolving technological war, the daily mutations of cheap, relatively low-tech drones can outperform the most expensive conventional equipment used by the armed forces.

Ukrainian drone pilots who destroyed NATO forces in a combat exercise involving thousands of soldiers last year warn that Russia's unmanned weapons pose a huge danger to the West.

A small unit of 10 Ukrainian drone operators managed to destroy 17 armored vehicles, damage another 30, paralyze the capacity of an attacking division and even to deliver humanitarian aid, the British media recalls.