Russian military bloggers have reported a sweeping outage of Starlink internet terminals across the Ukraine front.
It happened today after network owner Elon Musk shut them down following a plea from Kyiv.
At least nine bloggers close to the Russian army said connections had been lost, adding this could weaken Moscow’s ability to wage drone warfare and hinder co-ordination between units.
Moscow does not have a home-produced alternative to the satellite internet terminals.
“This is all very bad, especially given how crucial communications are at the front,” blogger Roman Alekhin wrote on Telegram.
Ukraine has also widely used the terminals throughout the four-year war to enable front-line communications.
“‘This is our Achilles’ heel, one good commander told me long ago about Starlink,” Russian military blogger Alexander Kots said in a post.
Russia’s military bloggers are close to regular troops and units fighting on the front.
Supportive of the war, they have frequently clashed with the Russian defence ministry over the conduct of the campaign and their publication of uncensored information directly from the front.
Musk, who runs the Starlink network through his SpaceX company, hailed progress in stopping Russian troops using the devices.
“Looks like the steps we took to stop the unauthorised use of Starlink by Russia have worked,” he said on his X social media platform.
Ukraine’s defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov hailed the move earlier this week as having “delivered real results”.
Kyiv first reported that Russia was using the terminals in January.
Russian drones equipped with Starlink terminals can better avoid electronic jamming and hit targets more accurately, Ukrainian officials said.
The four-year war has been marked by extensive use of drones – both long-range attack craft and smaller short-range devices used on the front line.
