“They are like blind kittens,” a Ukrainian General Staff commander tells POLITICO.
Two days after Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched Starlink verification and blocked unverified terminals in Ukraine, the pace of Russia’s offensive appears to be slowing, a Ukrainian military official told POLITICO.
“Currently, such a trend is indeed observed. But it will be necessary to monitor further whether it will continue, whether there will be other factors,” said the official, granted anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
“However, at some places, Ukrainian military Starlinks which have not been registered yet have also been disconnected. But the registration process is ongoing,” the official added.
It would not be the first time I overestimated Russia honestly, your criticisms there may not be without merit. The fact of the matter is Russia is fascist, and fascists don’t end up with good leadership or stewardship of the economy. Just as they don’t even make the components for advanced weapons systems that they once reverse engineered from western weapons (and consumer goods for that matter,) perhaps they’ve let their capability to make and use the internet languish.
I am aware it’s not just me the military industrial complex has always overplayed the russians capability to justify higher spending. Even as other parts of the establishment show their failures.
I guess however, if Musk’s satelites were an integral part of their operation they can’t replace, they failed. If anyone goes through a window, it should be whomever is in charge of making sure they had communications and instead took payoffs for overpriced projects that didn’t deliver, which is likely the case a thousand times over.
They should have the capability, and especially now this far into the war, there is no excuse, this is rank failure of Russia, an example of how fascism/one party states don’t work.