Russian offensive appears to be slowing after Musk blocks Starlink access, Ukraine says – POLITICO
www.politico.eu

“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.

  • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.worldEnglish
    51·
    6 hours ago

    Okay, I’m going to write this out once because every single post that’s about this ends up with lots of comments like this with tons of upvotes, and this is getting fucking ridiculous.

    JESUS FUCKING CHRIST STOP IT WITH THE OMG ELON COULD HAVE DONE THIS EARLIER, HE’S A RUSSIAN NAZI STOOGE WHO IS KILLING UKRAINIANS BECAUSE HE DIDN’T AND THIS IS ONLY BECAUSE OF THE EPSTIEN FILES ETC ETC ETC.

    Ukraine did not want to implement a whitelist until now.

    Let me repeat that

    Ukraine did not want to implement a whitelist until now.

    Ukraine and SpaceX have been working together on various counter measures this entire time, but they did not want a whitelist, as they weren’t getting buy in from their soldiers, and having to whitelist the entire country is not an insignificant amount of work.

    Soldiers were worried about having their donated or self purchased dishes taken. I’m sure civilians were worried as well. Civilians are dependent on it just as much as the military is, so it has to be a country wide program that comes with it’s own technical challenges.

    Russia, being the dicks that they are, started putting Starlink dishes on drones and hitting civilian targets, and these Starlink drones were harder to intercept & jam, so when they realized what was happening, Ukraine immediately asked SpaceX for help because the threat was to large. SpaceX immediately responded with a blanket speed limit to stop the drones from being used, and then worked with Ukraine to finally implement the whitelist.

    There is no conspiracy here. This isn’t Elon deciding okay I’ll help you and finally make a whitelist. This has absolutely nothing to do with the Epstein files and Elon wanting to look good.

    This is Ukraine detecting a new threat, asking SpaceX for help, and SpaceX helping them to the best of their ability.

    Maybe try to be more informed about what is going on than remaining in your (rightful) Elon hate bubble that you can’t see the forest through the trees.

    /end rant.

    • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      6 hours ago

      https://dronexl.co/2026/01/31/spacex-starlink-speed-limit-russian-drones/

      Serhiy Beskrestnov, known by his call sign “Flash,” is the advisor on defense technology to the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine and the same analyst who identified the Starlink connection to the train attack earlier this week.

      Beskrestnov’s thread revealed a secondary challenge that is less dramatic but possibly more important for the long-term solution. Ukraine needs to collect complete information on all Starlink terminals in use across the Armed Forces, and soldiers have been reluctant to cooperate.

      The problem is straightforward. Many soldiers use volunteer-provided or personally purchased Starlink terminals. These aren’t on any official inventory. Soldiers fear that reporting them to their commanders will result in confiscation, failure to replace them, or other bureaucratic headaches. Beskrestnov was blunt about this, acknowledging that previous attempts to catalog military Starlink use had failed for exactly these reasons.

      This matters because any whitelist system only works if you know which terminals belong to friendly forces. Of the estimated 200,000 Starlink terminals operating in Ukraine, fewer than half were procured through official government channels, according to a December 2025 analysis by Militarnyi. The rest exist in a legal gray zone of private purchases, volunteer donations, and foreign sourcing.

      Beskrestnov promised to find a way to gather this information that earns soldiers’ trust. He also stressed that SpaceX is directly involved in the process and is actively assisting specialists from the Ministry of Defence.