Russian military use Elon Musk's Starlink Internet to take advantage of Armed Forces of Ukraine

Russian military correspondent Alexander Kots said that the Russian Armed Forces use Elon Musk's technology in military actions. According to Kots, the Russian military use Starlink satellites in the special military operation zone.

Photo: mil.ru by Министерство обороны Российской Федерации, CC BY 4.0

"The troops actively use Starlink in the SVO (SVO is a Russian abbreviation for special military operation — ed.). We use it, among other things, for broadcast to command posts, to get images from reconnaissance UAVs,” the military correspondent said.

This has significantly raised the level of Russian intelligence, the military correspondent added.

Russia does not have similar equipment yet, so one has to use American equipment instead even though the security of their use remains questionable, Kots noted. He has not heard stories about Russian positions being identified due to the use of Starlink satellites, the military correspondent said.

The Russian forces obtained first Starlink kits in 2022. As part of his support for Ukraine, Elon Musk sent thousands of Starlink terminals to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which they began to use in the field of military communications. The Russian military obtained their first Starlink satellite Internet kits during the battle of Krasny Lyman in May 2022.

The Washington Post reported that the Russian army could significantly improve its combat potential in Ukraine thanks to the use of Starlink communication terminals.

Details

Starlink is a satellite internet constellation operated by Starlink Services, LLC, an international telecommunications provider that is a wholly owned subsidiary of American aerospace company SpaceX, providing coverage to over 100 countries and territories. It also aims to provide global mobile broadband. Starlink has been instrumental to SpaceX's growth. SpaceX started launching Starlink satellites in 2019. As of September 2024, the constellation consists of over 7,000 mass-produced small satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO) that communicate with designated ground transceivers. Nearly 12,000 satellites are planned to be deployed, with a possible later extension to 34,400. SpaceX announced reaching more than 1 million subscribers in December 2022 and 4 million subscribers in September 2024.