Put simply, Starlink uses its thousands of satellites to ping high-speed internet back to almost every corner of the globe, using terminals on the ground that users can easily buy and set up themselves. As Musk said, they have two instructions: “point at sky, plug in”.
This makes them ideal for use on the battlefield.
“It’s a connection… that you can basically use pretty fast, you don’t need any special equipment, you don’t need to prepare, you just go to the field and usually it works,” Neo, a soldier with one of Ukraine’s drone reconnaissance units, told the Today programme.
“It simplifies our work because we can translate or stream our reconnaissance operations,” he added.
The network has become “the backbone of military communications in Ukraine”, George Barros from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said, and is used across Kyiv’s naval, land, and air forces.
In Ukraine, both Starlink (the civilian service) and Starshield (the military service) are used, depending on what communications are needed.
It is crucial for the effective use of weapons such as drones, which connect to the network so that operators can see their targets in real time, effectively minimising the time between “sensor-to shooter”, Barros told the BBC.
Because Russia is not authorised to use Starlink, when Ukraine sends long-range missiles deep into Russia to hit oil refineries, the network does not work.
When it comes to Ukraine’s self-defence, it relies on the Starlink network to protect its own skies against incoming Russian attacks, especially jet-powered Shahed drones, Barros added.
Shaheds fly at speeds in excess of 198mph (319 km/h), meaning the Starlink restriction made Ukrainian efforts to chase them down all but impossible.
For Neo, this means that any deliberate restrictions on the Starlink network are “a betrayal”.
With no ready replacement for the Starlink network, any speed restrictions or loss of connectivity have major implications for Ukraine defences, and the recent limits have shown how dependent Kyiv is on the network.
