A Ukrainian soldier sets up a Starlink satellite. NurPhoto/Getty Images
Russia is trying to deny Ukraine access to Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites, analysts report.
Despite the development of a growing arsenal of electronic warfare systems, this has not been achieved, the analysts said.
Satellites have proven crucial in military operations and for communication between Ukrainian troops.
This is a machine translation of an article from our US colleagues at Business Insider. It was automatically translated and checked by an editor.
Russia is trying to cut off Ukraine’s access to Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites, space warfare analysts claim.
Since the start of the war, Russia has used jammers to try to deny Ukrainian forces access to commercial satellites. Jammers were attached to tanks to jam satellite signals and disrupt exploding drones. The transmitter jammed Ukraine’s GPS-guided bombs and jammed Ukrainian drones. The Ukrainian operators were thus forced to approach their targets on the front line.
Access to satellites has played a crucial role in Ukraine’s defense against Russia, particularly access to Musk’s satellite network.
Satellite internet has kept Ukrainians online and their businesses running during the war. This also made communication between soldiers at the front and the operation of weapon systems and drones easier.
At the same time, Russian jammers have become increasingly adept at jamming Ukraine’s most advanced weapons. They hinder Ukraine’s combat effectiveness. But Russia’s efforts to cut off Ukraine’s access to Starlink satellites have so far failed, space warfare analysts said.
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Interference-proof signals
Brian Weeden is chief program officer at the nonprofit Secure World Foundation. He told Business Insider: “Russia would certainly like to find a way to stop Ukraine’s use of Starlink. But that is much easier said than done due to the architecture of the constellation.”
Starlink’s signals are stronger and more concentrated. Because they work at a much lower altitude than geostationary satellites, it says Website from Starlink.
Because Starlink satellites are closer to Earth, latency — the delay between a user’s action and the network’s response — is shorter. This speeds up streaming, online gaming, video conferencing and other activities.
The SpaceX satellite Starlink 5 passes in the night sky over Denmark. MADS CLAUS RASMUSSEN/Getty Images
In the context of Ukraine’s electronic warfare, this makes jamming signals from Starlink satellites much more difficult, Weeden said. That means Russian hackers have not been able to hack Starlink so far, he added. While there is “very little” open data about Russia’s electronic attacks on Starlink, Weeden said Russian efforts do not appear to have been very successful.
Kari Bingen is Director of the Aerospace Security Project and Senior Fellow in the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. She said: “They keep trying, but they don’t seem to be very successful.” Bingen explains the Starlink satellites are both “resilient” and “agile” because Starlink operators are constantly updating their software to accommodate Russian satellites to ward off attacks.
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Attacks on satellites
According to the Counterspace timeline According to the Aerospace Security Project, Russia has attempted to approach, attack or infiltrate foreign satellite networks several times since its invasion of Ukraine.
On the first day of the invasion, February 24, 2022, Russian hackers launched a cyber weapon against Viasat. Viasat is an American satellite communications provider that provides military communications services to Ukraine. The attack hit a large number of satellite communication stations. It affected hundreds of thousands of people in Ukraine and Europe.
According to a USassessment of the cyberattack, Russia carried out cyberattacks on commercial satellite communications networks. Their goal was to disrupt the Ukrainian command and control structure during the initial invasion.
In March 2022, Finnair reported several cases of GPS jamming as its aircraft approached Kaliningrad, Russia, reports Reuters. At that time, Finnish President Sauli Niinisto met with Joe Biden. In response to the invasion of Ukraine, they discussed strengthening defense relations between Finland and NATO.
The US space company SpaceX, which owns Starlink, was also attacked in April 2022. The company’s engineers fended off Russian jamming attacks by updating the system’s software, an unnamed Pentagon official told BI at the time.
In one Post on X a month after the attack, Musk said Starlink had “so far withstood Russian cyberwarfare interference and hacking attempts.” However, he also said that Russian hackers were “intensifying their efforts.” No other Russian jamming or hacking attacks on Starlink have been reported or published.
SpaceX declined to provide BI updates on Russian jamming or hacking attempts on its Starlink satellites.
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Russia’s Growing Arsenal
Russia has developed an arsenal of electronic warfare systems. According to information from, these are aimed at Space Watch Global aimed at jamming communications satellites.
These are R-330Zh Zhitel, a mobile truck-mounted jamming station, and Bylina-MM, a system for suppressing communications satellites, the paper reports. They have truck-mounted antennas that send out a high-power signal and attempt to saturate any receivers tuned to Starlink frequencies.
Another system is the Krasukha-4 mobile EW system. That can defeat airborne early warning and control systems (AWACS) and other radar systems within a range of about 186 miles (nearly 300 kilometers), according to Space Watch Global.
A leaked secret US intelligence document According to reports leaked to The Washington Post last year, Russia has also been testing its Tobol electronic warfare systems to jam Starlink signals for several months.
Russia also has a wide range of space weapons, such as direct-ascent anti-satellite missiles (ASAT) and powerful lasers that can destroy satellites in orbit.
Ukraine strikes back
Ukraine has targeted these satellites. In July last year, Ukrainian special forces appeared in a video to destroy a Tirada and an electronic system “Leer-2” using drones. The Video was disseminated by the command of the armed forces.
In November, the Ukrainian military reported the destruction of several Russian systems, including a “Pole-21“ electronic warfare system and a Svet-KU.
Just in January, the same special forces said they were involved in the destruction of a Russian Number-2 Have helped. The Tirada-2 is a portable radio-electronic communications satellite jamming system that blocked satellite communications in eastern Ukraine.
A Ukrainian missile unit hitting the Russian Tirada-2 electronic warfare system in the Donetsk region of Ukraine, in a video posted by Ukrainian special forces on Telegram. Telegram
Bingen said it was not “surprising” that Ukrainian forces wanted to remove these jammers from the battlefield because they interfered with drones and precision munitions. “This genre, this area of electronic warfare, is only going to grow.”
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