Panic spread across Russian military channels in early February after Starlink implemented new restrictions on its satellite communications systems. Following assistance from Elon Musk, Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov announced mandatory Starlink terminal verification in Ukraine, with unregistered terminals disconnected to counter Russian use.
Social media is filled with Russian soldiers griping about the loss of their Starlinks, with one filmed kicking his, and another using the receiver as a dining table. Some appealed to the public for help, with one saying that “in a single night we completely descended into the Stone Age.”
Within days, Ukrainian electronic warfare expert Serhii Beskrestnov reported Russian assaults had stalled across multiple sectors. “The enemy has a catastrophe,” said Beskrestnov, who is advising Fedorov. Data from Cloudflare showed a drop in Starlink activity following the new restrictions.
A Ukrainian military official cited by Politico also said the pace of Russia’s offensive appeared to have slowed after the changes, while RBC-Ukraine reported a significant reduction in assaults.
“It’s much calmer,” said Anatolii Tkachenko, a Ukrainian mortar battery commander from 92 Brigade, who is fighting near Huliaipole. “They’ve been slowed down for at least a month.”
But the drop-off is not universal. Ihor Ivanov, from Ukraine’s 80 Air Assault Brigade and currently fighting on the Vovchansk front, said: “There’s been no major changes. It’s hot along the line of contact.” He added that the Russians were adapting. “They’ve become very active with fiber-optic drones,” he said.
So what changed? It seems a combination of factors are responsible. Russia began using the satellite system to strike far into Ukraine’s rear areas, doing very serious damage, and Ukraine worked out a way to shut down the Kremlin’s terminals while keeping its own online through a “whitelist” system. Musk’s reasoning remains elusive.
The result has been a scramble for alternatives among Russian frontline units. These have surged in price, even though they are inferior, as a result of endemic corruption. “Funds to create domestic military communications were embezzled,” wrote Russian war blogger Oleg Tsarev. “High-quality communications remain nonexistent.”
The loss of Starlink is crucial because much of the fighting is done by drones, which account for roughly 60% of all fire damage along the front, compared to 40% by artillery, according to Ukraine’s military.
For drones to function, they need constant connectivity, and electronic warfare is already intense, frequently rendering traditional links inoperable. The same is true for unmanned ground vehicles, which require persistent and reliable communications to function.
Russia learned from its early communications system failures and Ukraine’s use of Starlink and drones. It used support from Iran and China to scale up its drone technology and production and began fielding specialized drone units focused exclusively on unmanned operations, including formations such as Rubicon.
As operations matured, Rubicon shifted its focus deeper into Ukraine’s rear. Often leveraging satellite connectivity from Starlink, Russian drones hit targets at ranges exceeding 200km (124 miles). In December, a Molniya 2 strike drone reportedly flew more than 230km, setting a new range record.
Moscow was gaining an advantage in the mid-strike zone, where many high-value systems are positioned, such as HIMARS batteries. In late January, the Rubicon group struck what appeared to be a Ukrainian F-16 on the ground at an air base near Kropyvnytskyi in Kirovohrad Oblast, 200km from the front. Although the aircraft was a decoy, the strike reflected the potential of Russian long-range operations.
When embedded with drone units across the front, it was common to spot Russian drone operators using Starlink, which had been procured using third-party networks. Ukrainian defenders quickly sent in drones to destroy the systems and disable enemy operations, even if temporarily.
“Most of them use Starlink,” Bohdan, a drone pilot from 110 Mechanized Brigade, said on the frontline last summer when explaining the structure of Russian units’ communications.
The Russian pro-war military Telegram channel Dva Mayora complained that “the danger is that [Starlink] was the easy route compared to doing something of their own in space, laying fiber-optic lines that constantly get torn up, setting up ‘bridges’, or even working at scale with digital stations to transmit small data packets.”
With the new Starlink restrictions, Russia will be increasingly reliant on chains of LTE modems, Wifi bridges, relay stations, and mesh networks.
Without Starlink, “they often rely on a chain of modems and relay stations,” Bohdan said. “First, there’s a modem. Then a relay station 2km away. Then another one after that. [But] It’s not easy to operate that way.”
Ukrainian forces have documented Russia’s use of mesh-network modems on Shahed and Geran drones, a shift that has significantly expanded their range. According to Beskrestnov, these modems allow operators to control UAVs from distances of up to 600km by forming airborne communication chains that are harder to disrupt and can reroute data if individual drones are lost.
Shaheds have also been modified to carry onboard cameras capable of transmitting video from deep inside Ukraine, enabling real-time reconnaissance, route adjustment, and even precision strikes against moving targets.
Further complicating matters, Russia has established relay stations across the border in Belarus, which allow drones to maintain connectivity as they fly across Ukrainian territory.
“Russia retains the ability to control FPV drones through conventional radio channels, particularly from Belarusian territory, where the enemy has deployed a network of relay towers, allowing it to extend command range,” according to Anatolii Khrapchinsky, an electronic warfare expert.
Russian forces are also using radio bridges and networking equipment from US-based Ubiquiti for frontline communications and control in Ukraine, according to a HunterBook investigation. Researchers say the New York-headquartered company’s devices account for roughly 80% of Russian radio-bridge hardware found at combat positions.
Alexey Chadaev, CEO of Russian drone maker Ushkuynik, argued that instead of copying Starlink, Moscow should deploy inexpensive and easily manufactured stratospheric blimps as high-altitude communications platforms to control drones and relay signals beyond the reach of air defenses.
Kyiv has warned meanwhile that Moscow is trying to bribe Ukrainians to bypass the Starlink restrictions and threatened severe consequences for those tempted to take the cash and betray their country. “We will verify enemy Starlink numbers . . . and ‘lovers of easy money’ will get 15 years or life imprisonment if their Starlink causes people’s deaths,” Beskrestnov wrote.
For what was once regarded as the world’s second-strongest army to find itself technologically handicapped by a single American company disabling its connectivity reflects how desperate Russia has become, and how dependent it is on others, including China, to sustain its war effort.
But the Starlink episode is also a warning for Ukraine and Europe. Musk previously restricted Ukrainian connectivity during operations near occupied Crimea, and if tensions with Washington boil over, there is no guarantee Ukraine would not again find itself on the receiving end of similar restrictions.
David Kirichenko is a freelance journalist and an Associate Research Fellow at the Henry Jackson Society. He can be found on X/Twitter @DVKirichenko.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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