Ukraine’s plucky military has so far outboxed the larger and more muscular Russian army that invaded on Feb. 24. Elon Musk may have something to do with it.
The American punditocracy has obsessed over Musk’s recent deal to purchase Twitter, which might ruin free speech as we know it, or, modestly alter a social-media platform most Americans don’t even use. Meanwhile, people have been dying in Ukraine—or not dying—because of Musk’s effort to help the underdog Ukrainians with secure communications.
On Feb. 26, two days after the Russian invasion began, a top Ukrainian official asked Elon Musk on Twitter to activate SpaceX’s Starlink service in Ukraine. Starlink is a satellite-based high-speed internet service offered by SpaceX, where Musk is CEO, for people who don’t have access to wired internet. Airlines may adopt it for in-flight Wi-Fi. SpaceX rockets have so far deployed about 2,400 Starlink satellites, with the goal of ultimately fielding 42,000 satellites that can provide internet service in most inhabited parts of the world.
Musk responded in less than 24 hours, saying Starlink service is now active in Ukraine. That was step one. Starlink requires ground terminals, small dishes that connect with the satellites. Those began arriving within two days, according to another tweet by the minister who asked Musk for them. It’s not clear how they got there, though European employees at Tesla, where Musk is also CEO, may have helped with deliveries. The U.S. government is now involved, and there may be 5,000 ground units in Ukraine, or more, with each unit functioning like a router than can handle many users.
Starlink is now providing internet service for Ukrainian civilians in areas where Russians have cut off communications. Ukrainian fighters are using it too—and some say the service is helping them beat the Russians. Writer David Patrikarakos of Unherd interviewed one soldier in eastern Ukraine who said, “Starlink is what changed the war in Ukraine's favor. Russia went out of its way to blow up all our comms. Now they can't. Starlink works under Katyusha fire, under artillery fire. It even works in Mariupol."
'A tangible difference on the battlefield'
Western analysts agree that Starlink is helping the Ukrainians punch above their weight.
“The Russians, for all the mistakes they’ve made, they’re an electronic warfare superpower,” says Air Force Lt. Col. Tyson Wetzel, a military fellow at the Atlantic Council. “They’re excellent at jamming communications. We haven’t seen as much effect as we thought on the Ukrainians, and I think Starlink is playing a big role in that. The tactics they’re using, that coordination is probably happening on Starlink. It has made a tangible difference on the battlefield.”
Ground combat units normally communicate in a variety of ways that can leave them vulnerable. Fiber-optic lines are hard to jam or tap, but also difficult or impossible to lay in a chaotic combat environment, where they can be destroyed. Radios are susceptible to jamming, and the more distance between them, the less effective they are. Combat units using remote weapons such as drones need to sustain communication links with those systems, also susceptible to jamming. The U.S. military has sophisticated systems to withstand all this, but the Ukrainians don’t.
SpaceX founder and Tesla CEO Elon Musk speaks on a screen during the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain, June 29, 2021. REUTERS/Nacho Doce ·Nacho Doce / reuters
Ukraine’s military isn’t detailing how it’s using Starlink, but it may be for all of those things: Rapid battlefield communication that allows quick maneuvering, targeting, troop coordination, and secure, real-time connectivity between front-line units and distant HQs. Ukrainian troops physically cut off in the besieged port city of Mariupol have still been able to post social-media messages and communicate with leadership in Kyiv, probably via Starlink.
The Russians have caught on. They’ve apparently tried to jam Starlink, with little or no success. Musk referred to this elliptically in a March 4 tweet, then said the next day, “Some Starlink terminals near conflict areas were being jammed for several hours at a time. Our latest software update bypasses the jamming.”
On March 25, Musk said, “Starlink, at least so far, has resisted all hacking & jamming attempts.”
Dave Tremper, a Pentagon official overseeing electronic warfare, was impressed. “The way Starlink was able to upgrade when a threat showed up, we need to be able to have that agility,” Tremper said at a conference on April 20.
The cat-and-mouse game is far from over. While Starlink ground units provide fast and secure communications, they also emit a detectable radio signature, plus they need to be used outdoors where overhead reconnaissance could find them. Musk’s advice: “Turn on Starlink only when needed,” “place antenna as far away from people as possible,” and power the unit with “solar panels + battery pack” instead of a generator, to eliminate heat and smoke giveaways.
SpaceX has developed Starlink as a civilian system to provide internet service in rural areas and underserved parts of the world—not as military technology. But its use in a shooting war makes it an obvious and perhaps legitimate target for the Russians, like any other piece of command-and-control hardware.
Musk himself has said the probability of Russians attacking Starlink terminals in Ukraine is “high.” There's the more fraught question of whether Russia might ever attack the satellites that form the backbone of the system. Russia has tested anti-satellite weapons, which the United States most likely has, too, despite a U.S. ban on testing. But with thousands of satellites scheduled for the Starlink system, it may be impossible to shut down. Whatever happens in Ukraine, Musk now straddles yet another frontier, where the civilian and military use of space meet. Expect to see more about it, on Twitter.
