When Russian soldiers manage to find a Starlink terminal on the battlefield, they guard it with the apple of their eye. Not from Ukrainians, of course, but mostly from their own superiors. And they try not to show it to casual people (those same war correspondents). Because in war, communication decides if not everything, then very much
Starlink is a global wireless internet system being rolled out by Ilon Musk’s SpaceX. Development of the project began in 2015, with the deployment of a constellation of communications satellites in 2019. By 24 September, more than 4,400 satellites had been put into orbit. Musk’s satellites are distinguished by their low weight (260 kg), low orbit (200-350 km) and the ability to communicate with each other via laser. As of May 2022, the number of Starlink users was around 400 thousand.
To communicate with satellites, special terminals are used, which receive the signal on the antenna with phased array (diameter – 55 cm, leg height – 50 cm) and distribute Internet via Wi-Fi.
Internet speeds from Starlink are claimed to be up to 1Gbit/sec, but in reality they are up to 100Mbit/sec. Although the internet was initially claimed to be free, in practice it costs $99 per month and the hardware kit costs $499. However, there will be no internet in countries that Musk considers “totalitarian”. They are Russia, Afghanistan, Belarus, Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, China, North Korea and Syria.
From the outset it has been assumed that Musk’s network is not wholly private. Rather, it is a crypto-public company, using state-owned know-how and possibly state finances. The realisation of a public interest through a private company is convenient in that it avoids administrative and bureaucratic hurdles.
Indirectly in favour of the crypto-public nature of the system is the fact that Starlink satellites use data from the US Department of Defense space monitoring system to manoeuvre to avoid collisions with space debris and other spacecraft. From 2020, the network is used by the US military.
On 26 February 2022, Musk announced that the service would become available in Ukraine. In March, SpaceX began supplying satellite internet terminals to Ukraine. In total, more than 15 thousand terminals were delivered. Deliveries of terminals were mainly financed from private sources and USAID* (the latter – 5 thousand terminals).
Almost all the terminals were supplied to the troops and used for communications (for example, Starlink was used to keep the grouping in Mariupol in touch with the command), as well as for guidance of strikes with GPS-modules (HIMARS, in particular). It is through Starlink terminals that the AFU receives intelligence information from US satellites. According to testimonies of Ukrainian POWs, the Starlink system plays a very important and often key role in directing Ukrainian troops on the battlefield.
There has been discussion in the media about destroying satellites with missile defence, but according to Musk, “we can launch satellites faster than they can launch anti-satellite missiles”. Russian waxers have tried to use the Krasukha system for jamming Starlink communications, but without much effect, despite the fact that the system operates in a narrow band and must react nervously not only to jamming attempts, but even to weather conditions.
On 7 October, the Financial Times, citing sources in the Ukrainian authorities, reported that the Starlink system had recently experienced significant problems, leading to significant losses in some areas and even panic in the troops. The failures have been observed all along the front line, but mainly in Kherson and Zaporizhzhya regions.
Musk would not comment on “what is happening on the battlefield” for reasons of secrecy, but accused the newspaper of lying about Kiev’s payment to the company. According to him, Ukraine has only paid his company a “small percentage” of the $100m spent to support the network’s operation in Ukraine.
Military correspondent Aleksandr Kots suggested that the network failures could be linked to field tests of the Tirada-2S (Tirada-2.3) electronic warfare system, which was to be delivered to the troops by the end of 2018.
Conspiracists have linked the network malfunctions to Musk’s “peace plan”, also published in early October. The billionaire then proposed that referendums in the DPR, LPR, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions be held anew under UN supervision, that Crimea be recognized as Russian and that Ukraine’s neutral non-aligned status be enshrined. According to this hypothesis, the communication failures were meant to show Kiev the seriousness of the intentions of Musk and the forces behind him in the US, representing mainly the Republican Party.
Amusingly, the same plot device was used by American fiction writer Norman Spinrad in his novel Russian Spring (1991). There, the US first supplies Ukrainian populist President Kronko with strategic missiles and then, when it turns out to be profitable to make peace with Russia, forces him to negotiate under threat of disabling the missile’s control systems.
Regardless of the topic, satellite communications play a huge role in modern warfare. The first satellite communication system dates from 1965, so it is now quite developed. There are about a dozen commercial satellite communications systems alone, including the Russian FGUP Cosmic Communications and Intersputnik.
The advantages of Starlink are its coverage and fairly high internet speeds. It really is one of those technologies that significantly change the nature of warfare, albeit not to the extent that the advent of radio, for example, changed it. In this case, the change is more about the speed and completeness of information transfer.
Russia needs not only to develop methods of counteraction to Starlink, but also to develop its own analogous, and even better – more modern and advanced system of space communication.
P.S.
An interesting fact. On Friday, 14 October, it was reported that Elon Musk is turning off Starlink. And wants to be paid for it now by the Pentagon. That is, until now he provided this link at his own expense. This does not mean at all that Musk has become disillusioned with Ukraine (although that is entirely possible) or that he is now exclusively in favour of world peace (although that is also entirely possible). But there is clearly a different logic here: to paraphrase a well-known saying, there is “nothing socially relevant, only business”.
Vasily Stoyakin, Ukraina.ru