Ukraine Pivots to Israeli-Italian Satellite Tech to Bypass Starlink Restrictions

mopsi

Russian war correspondents are saying that the attempts to micromanage the war through toggling Starlink on and off have massively backfired, because the new satellite terminals permit mid-course corrections, which have made Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries much more devastating: https://x.com/Tweet4AnnaNAFO/status/2120068909738967342

iammjm

Satellite comms, anti-ballistic missiles, and long-range strike capabilities are some of the technologies that the US has been #1 at, and it could've stayed this way if they supported their European allies. But due to US trying to press Ukraine, and thus Europe, into submission, they pushed Europe to develop their own alternatives. The importance of all of this is massive. This is an absolutely crushing blow to the US ability to project both hard and soft power.

thisislife2

Interesting - Iranians leaders were recently in Moscow, and so Israel's increased military support to Ukraine in this manner suggests that Iranians have perhaps managed to strike some military / security deal with Russia. More info on the HiSky system being discussed - https://defpulse.news/en/what-is-known-about-hisky-satellite... ... apparently this system uses a mix of LEO and GEO satellites, unlike Starlink which exclusively uses LEO satellites (which provides better latency). Starlink also has 11,000+ LEO satellites in orbit which allows it to provide unprecedented coverage, which is currently unmatched by any of its competitors. This is also what provides it an advantage in its military use as it makes it extremely expensive to jam over a territory. For example, over Ukraine-Russia (where operationally allowed) a Starlink terminal is always in range of, and thus can connect to, around 20-60 Starlink satellites. This makes jamming it quite difficult and expensive. ( EW vs Starlink: What Actually Works? - https://militarnyi.com/en/blogs/ew-vs-starlink-what-actually... ). That will be the interesting thing to study here with any alternative networks used for military application - how resistant are they to jamming here? Also, one of the reasons that the range of Starlink is limited to only over Ukraine (with some coverage spilling over the Russian borders) is because the Russians bluntly threatened to blow up Starlink satellites over Russia. Musk also now claims that Ukrainians "bypassed" this by using civilian Starlink transmitters (which are slower for military use) over Russia (which he now claims to have "disabled" permanently, and apparent why Ukranians are exploring alternatives). Depending on whether the Israelis and Italians have given explicit approval for the military use of their network, So Russia's political response should also be interesting. If politicalthreats fails, we may actually see the first use of anti-satellite weapons in a real war, shifting the theatre of military operations to Space. After the advent of drone wars, this may be another game changer in modern warfare.

lithos

Musk lost future billions from his Starlink Ukraine antics. Sure previously everyone knew it was suboptimal to use foreign communication tech, now it's not even worth debating that you shouldn't use starlink for anything near the military (including foreign aid, war/disaster reporting, and anything else that an insanely politically motivated person would see as "military action").

myth_drannon

I'm curious if the highly unusual visit by very high ranking Russian GRU delegation is related or it's more about the coming war with Iran. "Sanctioned Russian jet carrying military intel. chief lands in Israel after departing Moscow base" https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-914291