In the fall of 2022, at least a hundred Starlink terminals were disconnected over the temporarily occupied Kherson region, where the Armed Forces of Ukraine began their counteroffensive.
Points of attention
- Elon Musk gave the order to restrict the operation of Starlink terminals in the Kherson region during the Ukrainian Armed Forces' counteroffensive in 2022.
- The shutdown of Starlink led to information isolation of the Ukrainian military on the battlefield, affecting drone and artillery operations.
- Sources revealed that at least a hundred Starlink terminals were disconnected, causing communication disruptions for Ukrainian troops.
Starlink shutdown during the AFU counteroffensive in 2022: did Musk give the order?
In the fall of 2022, billionaire and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk ordered the restriction of the operation of Starlink satellite communication terminals in Ukraine. At that time, the Ukrainian Defense Forces were conducting a counteroffensive to recapture some of the territories captured by the Russian Federation.
This is reported by Reuters, citing sources.
The agency's interlocutors said that in 2022, Musk ordered a senior engineer at SpaceX's California office to restrict access to Starlink satellite communications in some regions of Ukraine, in particular the Kherson region.
"We have to do this," journalists quoted Starlink engineer Michael Nichols as saying to his colleagues after receiving the order.
Sources said that at least a hundred Starlink terminals were then disconnected. Their hexagonal cells went blank on the company's internal coverage map.
The agency emphasized that this led to the fact that the Ukrainian military found itself in information isolation on the battlefield. Due to the shutdown of the terminals, some of the Ukrainian drones also stopped working, and artillery units that used Starlink to target them faced difficulties.
In addition, this step led to the fact that Ukrainian troops were unable to surround Russian positions in the city of Beryslav, which is located near Kherson, the agency added.
Recall that on July 24, it became known that Starlink satellite communication terminals stopped working across the entire front in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Later, it turned out that this problem occurred among users all over the world.
