The American company SpaceX has restricted the use of Starlink satellite internet on vehicles in Ukraine.
Yesterday, members of the Narodnyi Starlink Facebook group started reporting that Starlink terminals were being flagged for excessive movement speed.
According to Defense Minister’s adviser Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov, today’s restrictions are the first countermeasures implemented by the company at the request of Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense.
He added that these restrictions are temporary.
“I want to emphasize that the current measures are TEMPORARY (or, to put it another way, EMERGENCY) and will be replaced by a global, well-thought-out solution, which will take time,” Serhii Beskrestnov wrote.
On January 29, Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov reported that Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense, together with Elon Musk’s company SpaceX, is working to address the issue of Russian drones using Starlink terminals.
In January, Ukraine’s air defense forces intercepted a Russian BM-35 drone for the first time that was controlled via a Starlink satellite terminal. Prior to this, Starlink terminals had been detected on Molniya strike drones, and the earliest recorded use on Shahed drones dates back to September 2024, though it did not become widespread at the time.
