Starlink limit hits Ukraine's drones

MayeulC

The timing is interesting, given that it comes days after Musk said Ukraine had gone "too far" striking Yandex data centers. Putting other considerations aside, these strikes could be interpreted as direct retaliation against strikes on Ukrainian data centers days before. That said, depending on a single piece of tech is not a good idea (as evidenced by the Russians when they lost starlink access). Russians have resorted to long-range mesh radios, Ukrainians should probably integrate that as well (though it does increase BOM costs). The other dependency is Chinese suppliers, who supply both sides but may prefer to favor Russia. It is a huge liability for Ukraine as it supplies 80% of the parts that perform 70% of battlefield duties, and could stop anytime (besides known design leaks to the adversary, etc). Russia is even relocating whole production lines to evade sanctions. Ukraine has been fighting with one arm behind its back, this is the latest development in the series of seemingly-arbitrary limitations imposed on it.

spiderfarmer

It’s so obvious that Putin has something on Trump. It’s either the unsubstantiated pee tape, or they have the video tapes Epstein said he had. And since Musk also (at least) wanted to party on one of the islands wildest nights, there might be even more leverage Putin is using strategically.

eqvinox

The temporal correlation with datacenter hits argued to take out Russian bot farms is striking... Normally I'd say "assume ignorance before incompetence before malice" but with the current US political climate it's usually all 3 at the same time.

contingencies

Defence media can't really talk politics, so who can try to read between the lines? There must be a lot of money riding on Trump's political career for Musk to do this, as it's bad for his image and his company's image.

NookDavoos

When you think about it - wouldn't disabling the Starlink system completely remove or at the very least vastly reduce the threat posed by Iranian drones over the Strait of Hormuz? I bet its all bootstrapped with starlink internet.

nextlevelwizard

Not surprising considering Trump is Putin's agent and Musk is Trump's agent.

alnxdrawr

Unacceptable. How far has Musk fallen from when he was our best hope to save this planet. From an Ironman inspiration to an actual real life villain.

tomtomistaken

Post got pushed back to >150 rank

apexalpha

Give France $30 billion and launch a few orbits full of LEO. We don't need to cover the globe like SpaceX, just Ukraine and from there North-Westward into Russia. Imagine Britain in the fucking Blitz where Roosevelt starts to buy oil from Nazi Germany and JP Morgan cuts off the Telegraph somehow. Crazy times.

varjag

If Musk/Trump truly commit to pulling Starlink for Ukraine this will spell the end of their licensing in most of Europe. Adjust your SPCX positions accordingly.

jacquesm

Of course this got flagged. I'm halfway tempted to post the link on every article currently on the homepage but I'm pretty sure the mods would not appreciate that sort of thing. Meanwhile, how about some Rust, a nice font, a new AI model and some pelicans while we're all safely gratifying our intellectual curiosity? And never mind the guys dying over there, that's not important. /s

davidguetta

the probably that musk acted "on his own intitative" and not with orders / "suggestion" from the us gov is not 100%

moogly

I thought they used Starshield and not Starlink now? Doesn't USAF control that?

superkuh

This drives home the point that depending on US companies for anything means you have to bow and pay tribute to the US regime or else they'll cut you off, even if the company itself doesn't want to. The US is currently an authoritarian regime without law.