6 comments

  • t-3 7 hours ago

    > He said that one in every three of the drones managed to hit its target because of the Starlink technology. “It is impossible to suppress (them) with electronic warfare. It can only be physically shot down if an anti-aircraft drone sees it and shoots it down,” he said.

    How is impossible to stop using electronic warfare when it's communicating electronically? Is it just that the drones are high up (closer to the satellites) and it's hard to get enough noise in to mess up the signal? How is Iran supposedly jamming Starlink?

    The fact that the Russians can get enough terminals to make using them viable, and that Starlink hasn't considered that that might happen is concerning. I'd hope that retail location was recorded for each terminal sold and that any terminal not sold to Ukraine being activated in Ukraine could be flagged and disabled immediately. This just seems extremely sloppy.

    • bigbadfeline 6 hours ago

      > How is impossible to stop using electronic warfare when it's communicating electronically?

      It's narrow beam directed communication, hard to track down or jam especially if you don't have full control over the area and the air above it.

      > How is Iran supposedly jamming Starlink?

      Full control on the ground and up helps a lot, besides, the ground stations there are few and far between.

      > any terminal not sold to Ukraine being activated in Ukraine could be flagged and disabled immediately.

      To prevent the use of stolen or captured equipment, Starlink and Ukraine should maintain a shared list of valid active terminals in the area which would be updated in every case of terminals switching hands. I doubt that is being done though, it seems Starlink in Ukraine is more like a "dump and forget" operation. I also doubt that there's a real political will to help Ukraine this side of the pond.

    • thisislife2 6 hours ago

      Russia has adapted to drone warfare quite adeptly and Ukraine currently increasingly lacks the requisite technology and counter measures to deal with it. Faster, Harder to Shoot Down: Jet-Powered Shahed Drones Strike Kyiv at Speeds Over 500 km/h - https://www.kyivpost.com/post/57347 (See also - Missiles of desperation: Inside Ukraine’s last-ditch weapons gamble - https://www.rt.com/russia/624739-missiles-of-desperation-ukr... ).

    • inemesitaffia an hour ago

      >not sold to Ukraine

      i.e most of the Starlink devices in Ukraine

  • xvxvx 7 hours ago

    I assume Russia is geofenced off from the Starlink network, and every device can be tracked easily. So these could be Ukrainian military units being repurposed by Russia, likely from inside Ukraine. Perhaps a shipment was intercepted?

    • inemesitaffia an hour ago

      Most Starlink devices in Ukraine are "foreign".

      You can use one with a British plan in Ukraine.