There has been much propaganda recently about the use of the Starlink system in Ukraine. Zelenskyy has been crying that the administration had cut Ukraine off from protecting themselves by denying them use of StarShield/Starlink.
Earlier this week, outgoing Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) seemed to indicate that the StarShield system, which is a US government system separate from Starlink, has been disrupted and was exposing American personnel in Ukraine. Cornyn called for an Inspector General investigation. I wonder how many times Cornyn went to Ukraine. Asking for a friend.
Now, it is the official position of the United States government that Ukraine has never had access to the “StarShield” global satellite system used by the United States military for communication and global guidance targeting. Giving Ukraine access to StarShield would be like the United States operating missile and drone targeting of nuclear armed Russia. Obviously, that would not be a good idea.
So, assuming that Ukraine does not have such access to StarShield as Cornyn is implying, just what is going on with the Starlink system over Ukraine?
Musk noted:
Secretary of State Marco Rubio set the record straight. Rubio notes that Zelenskyy’s claims against the White House are nonsense. The White House has not interfered or instructed the military about the use of StarShield because Ukraine has never had StarShield to use. If Ukraine has been violating the terms of service by weaponizing Starlink (they have) then the commercial provider can act independently to block or stop that access.
Let’s be reminded that about a month ago Russia finalized their own upgraded satellite system that covers Russia and eastern Europe. The increased accuracy of recent Russian targeting inside Ukraine is most probably because of their own enhanced capabilities. This is highlighting just how vulnerable Ukraine is. Will this lead to a change in Zelenskyy’s position regarding peace?
Elon Musk got involved in the conversation on Friday.
Understand that as constructed for public use, the Starlink system’s required connections were too slow for rapid battlefield use. Most likely what happened is that Ukrainian software engineers found a way to make the Starlink system think that reality was slower than what was actually happening in the air. This enabled use of Starlink to carry out attacks in Russia.
[VIA X-Platform] – “This technical thread suggests (explains) that the entire Starlink/shield slowdown issue is not a consequence of a political decision in the US or by Musk but the result of Ukrainian engineers hacking the system to bypass it’s controls and do something they are not permitted to do – and when Starlink took steps to prevent the bypassing and ensure the controls remained effective, suddenly the system stopped working in ‘bypass mode’ – and Zelensky then set out to politicise matters.
Let’s be reminded that the EU needs the war to continue regardless of the number of Ukrainian young that die in the trenches. And there have been an unconscionable number of them. The war could have ended in 2022 until Boris Johnson from the UK convinced Zelenskyy to withdraw from the deal that had been reached.