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    For months, Ukraine has been campaigning SpaceX to prevent Russia from using Starlink. In February, a deal was reached. "I think they lost 50% of their capacity for offense," a Ukrainian drone operator said. "That's what the numbers show. Fewer assaults, fewer enemy drones, fewer everything."
    Space

    For months, Ukraine has been campaigning SpaceX to prevent Russia from using Starlink. In February, a deal was reached. “I think they lost 50% of their capacity for offense,” a Ukrainian drone operator said. “That’s what the numbers show. Fewer assaults, fewer enemy drones, fewer everything.”


    For months, Ukraine has been campaigning SpaceX to prevent Russia from using Starlink. In February, a deal was reached. “I think they lost 50% of their capacity for offense,” a Ukrainian drone operator said. “That’s what the numbers show. Fewer assaults, fewer enemy drones, fewer everything.”

    https://www.supercluster.com/editorial/the-race-to-find-starlink-alternatives-to-control-battlefield-drones

    View 9 Comments

    9 Comments

    1. sojuz151 on

      I am wondering what was happening behind the scenes. Maybe we will learn in 20 years.

    2. Flipslips on

      What a misleading title.

      Starlink has been banned for Russian use for years now. Russia have been using hacked or stolen terminals.

      Now ukraine needs to whitelist every single one of their terminals in their possession to bypass the geographical location ban. Which is fine, but Ukraine was opposed to this at first when SpaceX suggested it. Now they realize SpaceX was right and this is the only way to do this.

      TLDR: there is a blanket geographical ban on Starlink. Ukraine needs to register every terminal in their possession to bypass the ban. SpaceX suggested this years ago but Ukraine was opposed (likely because it’s a massive undertaking, they have like 95,000 Starlink terminals in military use)

    3. Zuliano1 on

      It’s insane how satellite internet has become so vital so fast, even the military in my country was using Starlink in remote areas despite banning it for everyone else and the obvious OPSEC issues. It’s now fully legal since a month ago.

    4. jack-K- on

      Why does this title act like Ukraine has been trying to get spacex to act when they haven’t? It has been a continuous process that they have been trying to solve this entire time.

    5. BeerPoweredNonsense on

      >Today, Ukraine is by far the largest user of Starlink terminals in the world. According to Ukrainian satcom expert Volodymyr Stepanets, some 250,000 terminals are active in the country. Out of that number, 100,000 are in the hands of the military.

      Very interesting. 150k officially “non military” terminals, in a poor country, ravaged by war. It does give credence to the story that a lot of these “non military” terminals are, in fact, used by Ukr soldiers.

    9. dcdttu on

      Russia invades another country and we have to stop and think, for years, about whether we shut off the tactal advantages WE are providing them. Wild.