\n Efforts to halt Russia\u2019s use of the Starlink internet system to guide its drones for attacks on Ukraine have produced \u201creal results,\u201d Ukraine\u2019s defense minister Mykhailo Fedorov said on Sunday.\n <\/p>\n
\n Fedorov said Ukraine worked with Elon Musk\u2019s SpaceX company, which owns Starlink, to take initial steps to counter Russian drones.\n <\/p>\n
\n He said the next step is \u201cimplementing a system that will allow only authorized terminals to operate on the territory of Ukraine.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Fedorov continued, \u201cIn the coming days, we will share instructions for Ukrainian users to register their Starlink terminals for verification. Unverified terminals will be disabled.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n He added that the registration process would be \u201csimple, fast and user-friendly.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n In a response to Fedorov, Musk said that \u201cthe steps we took to stop the unauthorized use of Starlink by Russia have worked.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cLet us know if more needs to be done,\u201d Musk wrote on X.\n <\/p>\n
\n Fedorov similarly noted that the first steps are \u201calready delivering real results.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThank you for standing with us. You are a true champion of freedom and a true friend of the Ukrainian people,\u201d Fedorov wrote to Musk.\n <\/p>\n
\n Since the beginning of the war, Ukraine has been reliant<\/a> on Musk\u2019s satellite-based internet service, which is used by the military to communicate and operate drones, by the government as well as many civilians, businesses and public institutions, including hospitals and schools.\n <\/p>\n \n Under US sanctions, Starlink cannot be sold or used in Russia. However, analysts and Ukrainian officials have warned<\/a> that Russia has increasingly been finding ways to leverage the system to its own advantage, mounting terminals on its attack drones to strike deeper into Ukrainian territory.\n <\/p>\n \n Starlink-equipped drones have a longer range than radio and cable-guided drones and cannot be jammed. The superfast connection also makes it possible to control them in real-time from inside Russia, allowing them to be much more precise.\n <\/p>\n \n Ukraine has collected evidence of \u201chundreds\u201d of attacks by Russian drones equipped with Starlink terminals, according to Serhii Beskrestnov, a military tech expert and adviser to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry.\n <\/p>\n \n Beskrestnov has said it was also likely that a deadly strike<\/a> on a civilian train in eastern Ukraine was conducted with a Shahed drone equipped with a mesh radio modem or possibly a Starlink.\n <\/p>\n \n Last week, Musk called<\/a> Poland\u2019s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Rados\u0142aw Sikorski a \u201cdrooling imbecile\u201d after the Polish leader questioned why Musk does not \u201cstop the Russians from using Starlinks to target Ukrainian cities.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Last March, while US-Ukraine relations coarsened <\/a>as President Donald Trump pressured his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky to negotiate, Musk described <\/a>Starlink as \u201cthe backbone of the Ukrainian army.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cTheir entire front line would collapse if I turned it off,\u201d he said, before adding that \u201cno matter how much I disagree with the Ukraine policy, Starlink will never turn off its terminals.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n In 2024, Musk denied <\/a>that Starlink systems were sold to Russia, adding that \u201cto the best of our knowledge, no Starlinks have been sold directly or indirectly to Russia.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n At the time, Ukraine\u2019s Defence Intelligence claimed that it had confirmed the use of Starlink satellite communications by Russian forces in occupied areas.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIf SpaceX obtains knowledge that a Starlink terminal is being used by a sanctioned or unauthorized party, we investigate the claim and take actions to deactivate the terminal if confirmed,\u201d SpaceX said in a statement.\n <\/p>\n \n Over the weekend, Beskrestnov said that the efforts to curb Russia\u2019s use of Starlink had temporarily impacted some Ukrainian users.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI apologize to those who have been temporarily affected by the measures taken, but for the security of the country, these are very important and necessary actions at this time,\u201d he wrote<\/a> on Facebook.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Efforts to halt Russia\u2019s use of the Starlink internet system to guide its drones for attacks on Ukraine…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":265416,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[111,139,69,147,392],"class_list":["post-265415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265415\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}