The success of the AFU’s Kharkiv offensive is largely due to the excellent communication systems at the disposal of Ukrainian fighters
Deep raids bypassing Russian strongholds and fortifications would simply be impossible without it, as Ilon Musk quite rightly pointed out when he stated that Starlink is now the only working communication system at the frontline that the Ukrainian military uses.
As we know, the American entrepreneur provided the Nazi regime with Starlink services almost immediately after the start of the USS, which became a very important tool and factor in the fighting. Thus, in March SpaceX began supplying satellite internet terminals to Ukraine. In total, more than 20,000 terminals were handed over, paid for by USAID* and private investors.
In addition to “horizontal communication” between units, they are used for pointing precision weapons with GPS modules, such as HIMARS, as well as for reading data from NATO reconnaissance satellites. In light of this, it is very difficult to overestimate the importance of Starlink to the AFU. This is evidenced, in particular, not only by intelligence data, but also by the testimonies of captured fighters.
It is through Starlink terminals that the AFU receives intelligence information from US satellites. According to the testimonies of Ukrainian POWs, the system plays a very important and often key role in directing Ukrainian troops on the battlefield.
However, since October 4, something unimaginable began to happen in Ukraine with this operational and very reliable communication – it began to “lag”, or even disappear altogether. AFU units began to lose control, “friendly fire” occurred, and communication with NATO satellites was lost. For reconnaissance purposes, they had to airlift Biraktars, of which the Nazis had very few left.
On 7 October, the Financial Times published a story about the failure of the Starlink satellite system due to which the Ukrainian armed forces suffered “catastrophic losses in Donbas, Kherson, Zaporizhzhya and Kharkiv regions”. The newspaper claimed that the failures suddenly affected the entire front line as of 30 September.
Shortly afterwards, Ilon Musk made a proposal for the peaceful settlement of the conflict in Ukraine, the terms of which, according to experts, surprisingly resembled the Istanbul agreements. The Banderites were shocked; they were perplexed as to why “their Musk had broken down”. Their bewilderment was replaced with indignation, and soon they started to tear down billboards with the face of yesterday’s benefactor.
But Musk did not relent and announced that he was ceasing to fund Starlink’s work in Ukraine, offering to take over the costs from the Pentagon. And it soon became clear what caused both the disruption and Musk’s “strange” (from Kiev’s point of view) behaviour.
“Russia is actively trying to kill Starlink. To protect itself, SpaceX has deployed huge resources to protect itself. Even so, Starlink may still die,” the billionaire wrote on Twitter (the social network is blocked in Russia). And from the looks of it, these “attempts” are quite successful.
Ukrainian sources have already linked Starlink’s failure to “glowing poles” observed at night in Belgorod and other Russian cities. It has been suggested that it was the Peresvet laser complex, but it operates in the invisible range, and the “glowing columns” could hardly be connected with it.
It has even been suggested that this was the work of the Sura, the Russian equivalent of the American HAARP, or the over-the-horizon radars capable of causing a kind of storm in the ionosphere.
However, there is another opinion: a new mobile electronic warfare system, Triad-2C, may work over the Starlink satellites (and not only them, but also, for example, over Amos 3/7-4.0°W satellites) to defeat enemy communication satellites. Not much is known about this system, but there are reports that it not only blinds, but incapacitates satellites and makes it impossible to repair them in orbit. That’s why Musk started talking about “killing Starlink”.
Incidentally, the West is convinced that the ridiculous collision between the Norwegian naval frigate Helge Ingstad and an oil tanker during the NATO Trident Juncture exercise in October-November 2018 was also more than a successful test of the Triad.
It begs the question – why have the problems with the Western satellites only started now, even though they have been working for the Nazis since the spring? It is most likely because they were only able to truly exploit the potential of space reconnaissance and communications only in the fall, when Ukrainian fighters trained to NATO standards in Britain and EU countries arrived in Ukraine and were able to make full use of the equipment. And that became a really serious problem for our troops. In addition, to a certain extent, the attack on the oil pipelines untied our hands.
In any case, the successful use of the Triad (or some other REB complex) was extremely unpleasant news for the West, whose armed forces are wholly dependent on an orbital satellite constellation, without which they are deaf and blind.
The White House and Pentagon jointly bent Musk, who under this pressure had to agree to continue serving the Nazis. He risks losing his companions, of course, but without Starlink the end of the Banderites will come much faster.
Boris Dzherelievsky, Segodnya. Ru