Russia Still Using Black Market Starlink Terminals On Its Drones (behindtheblack.com)
- Reference: 0180254975
- News link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/12/02/0125248/russia-still-using-black-market-starlink-terminals-on-its-drones
- Source link: https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/russia-still-using-black-market-starlink-terminals-on-its-drones/
> In its war with the Ukraine, it appears Russia is [2]still managing to obtain black market Starlink mini-terminals for use on its drones , despite an effort since 2024 to block access. [Imagery from eastern Ukraine shows a Russian Molniya-type drone outfitted with a mini-Starlink terminal, reinforcing reports that Russia is improvising satellite-linked UAVs to extend their communication and operational range.] SpaceX has made no comment on this issue.
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> According to [3]the article , Ukraine is "exploring alternative European satellite providers in response, seeking more secure and controllable communications infrastructure for military operations." While switching to another satellite provider might allow Ukraine to shut Starlink down and prevent the Russians from using it within its territory, doing so would likely do more harm to Ukraine's military effort than Russia's. There isn't really any other service comparable at this time. And when Amazon's Leo system comes on line it will face the same black market issues. I doubt it will have any more success than SpaceX in preventing Russia from obtaining its terminals.
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> Overall this issue is probably not a serious one militarily, however. Russia is not likely capable of obtaining enough black market terminals to make any significant difference on the battlefield. This story however highlights a positive aspect of these new constellations. Just as Russia can't be prevented from obtaining black market terminals, neither can the oppressed citizens in totalitarian nations like Russia and China be blocked as well. These constellations as designed act to defeat the censorship and information control of such nations, a very good thing.
[1] https://slashdot.org/~schwit1
[2] https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/russia-still-using-black-market-starlink-terminals-on-its-drones/
[3] https://united24media.com/latest-news/russias-war-drones-still-using-starlink-despite-pentagon-crackdown-13893
Re: (Score:3)
> agree that NATO will not advance up to the Russian border
It's a bit late for that now: there are already four* NATO members which have a land border with Russia (not counting Poland and Lithuania, which only border Kaliningrad).
*Although I'm not sure that Norway's border is very relevant in practical terms
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Thanks, Oleg.
Putin is one of the richest guys on the planet. He could have retired to, say, a chateau along the French riviera and lived out his remaining years in relative obscurity. Instead, he's a sadistic old man.
Vladimir can finish this tomorrow by sending his troops back across the border.
Re:Stop the war .. (Score:4, Informative)
The only people benefiting from this war are putin and his "Lake cooperative", who remain in power because of the war.
Without the war, the so-called "economy" of putinland, which is now 146% war-driven, will collapse and that, the regime will disappear.
"Suing" for peace won't work just like it didn't work with Nazi Germany, whose economy was driven to near collapse by Hitler's attempts to establish an autarky.
No za staranie - spasibo, tavarisch voin tikhogo fronta.
Re: (Score:1)
the mic benefits for sure, but not alone, and not even the most. most of those hundreds of billions the us "gave" to ukraine were indeed new contracts for the mic to renew the stock of older equipment sent to ukraine. so that stays in the us and is a lot of taxpayer money indeed. so good old whealth concentration form the worker class to the elites, business as usual. but even if their stuff is vastly overpriced, they'll still have to produce it. over 5-10 years, that is (china willing to keep providing rar
Musk shut down Starlink in Ukraine (Score:3, Insightful)
In September of 2022, when Ukraine was counter-attaking in the Kherson oblast and making significant headway, [1]Musk ordered Starlink service shut down [reuters.com] in that area. Not all of Ukraine, just the Kherson and surrounding areas.
As a direct resutl, an attempted encirclement of Russian troops in the town of Beryslav stalled. This encirclement would have seriously dented Russia's attack as their incompetence was already highlighted throughout the summer. Instead, because of Musk's orders, Russian troops were able to escape and fight another day.
The lame, cowardly, and pathetic excuse Musk gave for the shutdown was he was afraid Russia might use nuclear weapons. Instead of aiding Ukraine to repel the Russian assault and secure its borders, Musk sided with the attacker, thus enabling the now four year old war to continue. That he hasn't disabled Starlink terminals being used by Russia shows where his sympathies lie.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/investigations/musk-ordered-shutdown-starlink-satellite-service-ukraine-retook-territory-russia-2025-07-25/
Re: (Score:3)
Yep, this has to be pointed out every time people say "spaceX is there to help Ukraine".
Re: (Score:3)
I think pretty obvious to all but the stupid, spacex is there to help elon be The First Trillionaire.
Re: Musk shut down Starlink in Ukraine (Score:2)
You're calling yourself stupid then given Tesla, not SpaceX, gave him that trillion dollar pay package.
Re: (Score:2)
The guys who make the most noise are usually the ones with the smallest balls.
Re: Musk shut down Starlink in Ukraine (Score:2)
> In September of 2022, when Ukraine was counter-attaking in the Kherson oblast and making significant headway, Musk ordered Starlink service shut down in that area. Not all of Ukraine, just the Kherson and surrounding areas.
That wasn't Elon's decision.
[1]https://spacenews.com/shotwell... [spacenews.com]
If that was arranged though the Pentagon, it probably would have gone off without a hitch as it would have absolved SpaceX of any legal liability.
[1] https://spacenews.com/shotwell-ukraine-weaponized-starlink-in-war-against-russia/
Bullshit! (Score:5, Interesting)
> These constellations as designed act to defeat the censorship and information control of such nations
Bullshit! These constellations are explicitly designed to enable censorship and control. It can be controlled by the the country, by the U.S., by Starlink, by Musk himself. They can turn off everything, a whole continent, a remarkably small region - I think three mile precision - and Individual terminals. And that's just Starlink's control. Then there is jamming, allowing external parties to control/censor.
And there is absolutely no reason to expect Amazon Kuiper to be any different.
Re: (Score:2)
There's a huge difference:
Our governments, at least in theory, are controlled by us, the people. Ok, the 1% who make the major campaign contributions. But that's still a lot of people.
The number of SpaceX or Amazon shareholders who have enough shares to have a say in these matters is single-digits. So power is concentrated in much fewer hands.
Re: (Score:3)
> Our governments, at least in theory, are controlled by us, the people
Whenever you go vote, tell yourself "this might be the last election" . Doing that puts technologies and power structures in perspective...
Re: (Score:3)
> The number of SpaceX or Amazon shareholders who have enough shares to have a say in these matters is single-digits.
You think shareholders have a direct voice in day-to-day operations of a company? What is that mechanism?
Last I heard of something like that happening was when Roy E Disney was pissed that Eisner was screwing up the Disney-Pixar deal. He had to gather a dozen other large investors, overturn a good chunk of the board, then have them vote Eisner out to fix that deal.
Re: (Score:3)
Spacex is private. Elon runs it. Tesla similar, although public Elop owns such a large percentage along with trusted cronies owns enough he gets his way. I don't own amazon, but I do own share in companies and I vote just like in elections. Often not the way the board of directors recommends.
Re: (Score:2)
And commercial operations are beholden to governments giving them the right to operate within their territory.
There are many countries where starlink is not available, because their governments have not agreed terms for it to operate.
Take action? (Score:5, Interesting)
One thing Starlink could do is give the ukrainian government temporary (until the war ends) full access/control of all data flowing through the starlink network from any terminals within internationally recognised ukrainian territory.
Make it too dangerous for the russians to use, but still usable for ukraine.
Whitelist Ukranian terminals (Score:3)
Starlink knows the location of its terminals. They can simply whitelist Ukrainian terminals and geofence everything else so that it does not work in Ukraine.
Censorship comments make no sense because here terminals are only being switched on where they are allowed. This condition would not apply to people in countries seeking to evade censorship given Starlink is complicit in facilitating censorship in places like China.
Geofencing is baked into their business model so they very much have the capability. For example there is an extra fee to use Starlink beyond the internal waters of a country.
The real issue is Elon Musk is a Nazi.
Nobody here really understands (Score:3)
The reality of how the west is handling the Ukraine issue. Europe is richer and stronger than Russia, even without the US. The US, all alone, is richer and stronger than Russia. We could end the Russia-Ukraine war anytime we feel like it. Zelenskyy knows this. Putin knows this. All the world leaders and military men know this. Whats happening in Ukraine isnt “total war”. Its ”conflict management”. The west is drip feeding Ukraine just enough money and weapons to keep them in the fight, but only barely. This allows us to sit back and watch a truly dangerous enemy (Russia) repeatedly punch a brick wal, damage itself, grind an entire generation of young Russian men into hamburger, and mortgage its future, all for the sake of grabbing a few hundred square km of mostly-worthless land. The downside is that were sitting back and allowing a friendly nation (Ukraine) to be the brick wall, involuntarily. This is cold-blooded hard-headed morality-free geopolitics playing out here.
This actually suits Putin because hes got no exit strategy. His best option is to hang on and hope that luck turns his way. Thats not a strategy thats a prayer session. The second he pulls back, the scale of how badly he f$&ked his own country will become obvious. The options will be collapse or to ramp up the repression even harder. Option b is almost certainly the way itll go. Russia is well and truly boned for the rest of the century.
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Forgive my ignorance, but how can any country end the war if it fears a nuclear response?
Re: (Score:1)
the land is very valuable, that's where Ukraine's resources are. Couple that with control of the sea front and Russia will get centuries of return on its "investment" (they don't care how many of their soldiers get killed)
The "exit strategy" is Russia controls a valuable chunk of Ukraine.
How do you imagine we could "end the war anytime we like"? Seems you're disconnected from reality and maybe ignorant of the subject of warfare.
Just as you live on land that was taken from someone else by killing, so it is
Re: (Score:1, Redundant)
Be understanding, he's trying to push the Overton window over to full on racism and fascist tribalism.
Re:Of course it does (Score:5, Insightful)
SpaceX knows exactly where each terminal is because they have to for radio timing to work correctly with the moving satellites. Russia has to test those terminals somewhere. SpaceX could be giving that location to Ukraine. SpaceX could be permanently destroying any terminal that turns up near there and hasn't been cleared by Ukraine. SpaceX could be reporting the incoming locations of missiles and could be cutting service as soon as they realize that there's a surprise terminal moving rapidly towards a Ukrainian city.
Due to their lack of accuracy which makes them ineffective against hardened military targets, most of the Russian missiles are used in strict terror campaigns against civilian buildings: Power stations providing neighborhood heating, residential tower blocks with hundreds of families living in them, independent churches, nurseries often at times of maximum use and of course hospitals.
Getting on top of this and ensuring that Ukraine is a key supported customer that feels it gets what it needs could have allowed a real feel good story showing a company that took abuse and murder seriously. In fact it's pretty clear that some working at Starlink tried to do that at times and the management made it more difficult. Elon Musk is literally a baby killer.
Re: (Score:3)
> SpaceX could be giving that location to Ukraine.
Yeah, also the pigs could fly and elona could be a regular nice guy and not a Nazi on a wegovy diet.
But none of these are actually happening.
Re: (Score:2)
Given dynamic battlefield, I don't think that is as easily done as you think, and the moment SpaceX makes a mistake and knocks out a Ukrainian drone on a mission, they'll be guilty for everything. There's not really a winning position for them here.
Russia isn't hiding that it targets civilian infrastructure. They still wage war the way everyone did it in 1939-1945. US and UK bombers essentially just opened the doors above German cities and let the unguided bombs fall wherever. We're not doing that anymore b
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Indeed. The Germans started strategic bombing of civilian areas about 88 years ago, and in fact, the German president was just in Guernica paying his respects to the victims of that attack: [1]https://www.theguardian.com/wo... [theguardian.com].
We haven't stopped strategic bombing of civilian areas just because they don't work, it's also because it amounts to war crimes. Britain bombed Germany like that as a response to Germany doing it to Britain and that being the only response Britain could muster at the time, but RAF Bomb
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/28/german-president-honours-victims-of-nazi-bombing-atrocity-on-guernica-visit
Re: (Score:3)
> the moment SpaceX makes a mistake and knocks out a Ukrainian drone on a mission, they'll be guilty for everything.
Simple solution to that, give the Ukrainian government control/access to the services operating over their territory. Provide them the tools and let them make the mistakes.
> US and UK bombers essentially just opened the doors above German cities and let the unguided bombs fall wherever. We're not doing that anymore because most of the world learned that despite all this, they didn't exactly surrender.
Technology of the time made accurate targeting very difficult and far more dangerous. Even today, accurate weapons are significantly more expensive than inaccurate ones.
Re: Of course it does (Score:2)
> Simple solution to that, give the Ukrainian government control/access to the services operating over their territory. Provide them the tools and let them make the mistakes.
You guys are working on the very bad assumption (made by a guy who has no idea what he's talking about) that this information is even available to SpaceX to begin with. The only way to determine the precise location of a terminal is with plain old GPS, and that isn't at all foolproof.
Re: (Score:3)
> and the moment SpaceX makes a mistake and knocks out a Ukrainian drone on a mission
SpaceX doesn't need to do any such thing - they really just need to supply up to date location information to Ukraine. Ukraine can then send drones or whatever to any locations it doesn't like the look of, taking out testing and launch locations in the process. A large explosion ought to stop the terminal working, so SpaceX really doesn't need to do anything about it at all.
Of course, if SpaceX worked with the Ukrainians
Re: (Score:3)
The USAID cut related death toll is already up to 500k+, mostly children. If Elon isn't losing sleep already then I can't even imagine what would give him pause.
Re: (Score:2)
> The USAID cut related death toll is already up to 500k+, mostly children. If Elon isn't losing sleep already then I can't even imagine what would give him pause.
To Elon they are NPCs.
"I've not harmed anyone." ~Elon Musk
"Iâ(TM)ve only done productive things" ~Elon Musk
Stop thinking of Musk .... (Score:3)
... as some well meaning albeit flawed tech hero. He's not.
He's just another corporate sociopath - the only thing that matters to him is money and power. He'll only help out when its suits his purposes such as for Good PR , but like a lot of bullies he's also a coward to so won't put up when he really needs to such as in blocking starlink inside parts of russia.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure Starlink is already blocked inside Russia.
Re: Of course it does (Score:2)
> SpaceX knows exactly where each terminal is because they have to for radio timing to work correctly with the moving satellites.
This is quite false. It can only be known which cell the dish is in. You're thinking (likely without realizing) about Doppler. It doesn't work that way. And even then, it can still be slightly outside of that area. Photons don't work the way you think they do. The cell only guarantees where you'll get an adequate signal for service, it does NOT guarantee that you won't get an adequate signal outside of that area.
> Russia has to test those terminals somewhere. SpaceX could be giving that location to Ukraine. SpaceX could be permanently destroying any terminal that turns up near there and hasn't been cleared by Ukraine. SpaceX could be reporting the incoming locations of missiles and could be cutting service as soon as they realize that there's a surprise terminal moving rapidly towards a Ukrainian city.
You're making a ton of wild assumptions here, and no doubt you're predicating even those on top