Military users of SpaceX’s Starlink in key areas of the conflict in Ukraine are reporting debilitating outages, according to one report.
Ukrainian forces are reporting Starlink outages amidst efforts to defend newly liberated regions of the country, said the Financial Times on Friday.
The disruption to service led to a “catastrophic” loss of communication, according to a senior Ukrainian official who was directly familiar with the matter.
The disruptions took place as soldiers encroached on the front lines of Russian-invaded territories in the south near Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, as well as along the front lines of eastern Kharkiv, Donetsk and Luhansk, according to the anonymous official.
Bad reporting by FT. This article falsely claims that Starlink terminals & service were paid for, when only a small percentage have been.
This operation has cost SpaceX $80M & will exceed $100M by end of year.
As for what’s happening on the battlefield, that’s classified.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 7, 2022
The news took place after Ukrainian officials butted heads with SpaceX head Elon Musk over his posting of a ceasefire plan which would oversee the country ceding some of its invaded lands.
The areas were so recently liberated that they had “not been made public yet,” according to charity coordinator Roman Sinicyn. “It is absolutely clear to me that this is being done by representatives of Starlink to prevent the usage of their technology by Russian occupation forces,” predicted Sinicyn.
Musk commented on the report by saying it was “bad reporting”, because it “falsely claims that Starlink terminals and service were paid for, when only a small percentage have been.” Musk added, “this operation has cost SpaceX $80 million and will exceed $100 million by end of year.” He also said battlefield operations are “classified” and that he is also in “regular contact” with Ukraine’s Minister of Digital Transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov.
As of July, Ukraine had over 12,000 Starlink dishes, many of which had been donated by SpaceX and funded in part by other European countries.
