Musk's Starlink Cut Leaves Russian Forces Scrambling

A flip of a switch from Elon Musk may have flipped the dynamics on parts of Ukraine's front line. After Ukraine's defense minister asked SpaceX to block Russian access to Starlink, the company on Feb. 1 shut down all terminals in Ukraine except those cleared on a government whitelist—moves that Ukrainian troops say have sharply reduced Russian assaults and drone activity in some sectors. One drone operator estimated Moscow's offensive capacity had been cut in half, while others report Russian units scrambling back to older tech like radios and wired lines, making their movements easier to track, the BBC reports.

"I think they lost 50% of their capacity for offense," a Ukrainian drone operator tells the BBC. "That's what the numbers show. Fewer assaults, fewer enemy drones." Kyiv-backed volunteers also turned the reset to their advantage: the InformNapalm group says a phishing scheme tricked Russian soldiers into sharing data on more than 2,400 Starlink units, some of which were then targeted by Ukrainian strikes. Ukraine's military intelligence claims Russia is now struggling to coordinate forces and operate drones deep behind the front, though some Ukrainian soldiers say shelling feels unchanged and Moscow insists it's unaffected.

Analysts expect Russia will eventually adapt, giving Ukraine only a short window to press its edge and potentially improve its position in future negotiations.

• Russian access was blocked days after a Russian drone strike on a passenger train in eastern Ukraine killed at least five people. After Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski urged Musk to "stop the Russians from using Starlinks to target Ukrainian cities," Musk called him a "drooling imbecile" in a post on X and said Starlink's terms of service "do not allow for offensive military use, as it is a civilian commercial system," CBS News reports.
• A few days later, Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine's defense minister, said Ukraine had worked with SpaceX to counter Russian drones and the effort had produced "real results," reports CNN. "The steps we took to stop the unauthorized use of Starlink by Russia have worked," Musk said in a response to Fedorov, adding, "Let us know if more needs to be done."