They were surprised that such strikes require a very good internet connection, which systems like “Starlink” can provide.
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Last week it became clear that Ukraine asked billionaire and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to grant Ukrainian forces permission to use Starlink technology for strikes on Russian territory. Kyiv indicated that the strikes would be carried out up to 200 km from the state border with Ukraine.
However, experts believe that so far there is no talk of Kyiv having received any permission.
On Saturday and Monday, the commander of the Ukrainian drone forces, Robert Brovdis, posted videos showing drone strikes on airfields, radar stations, air defense systems, relay stations, warehouses, and other targets in the Krasnodar Territory and Rostov Region.
As noted by a Kremlin-affiliated military blogger “Vojenyj osvedomitel,” Ukrainian “FP-2” drones were used for the strikes. This is the main tool of Kyiv’s medium-range strike campaign.
Starlink technology allows these drones to reach any location in occupied Ukraine, as well as the waters of the Black Sea and Russian coastal areas, noted an open-source analyst. Starlink also enables the transmission of strike videos.
According to him, questions arise because Ukraine started sharing videos of strikes in Russia where it cannot use Starlink technology. Based on the analyst’s analysis, dozens of strikes have already been carried out against air defense systems, radars, and aviation in southern Russia.
Several scenarios are distinguished in which such strikes could be possible: this would require “Mesh” networks (wireless communication systems consisting of a main relay and additional nodes) with drone relays to maintain communication, wrote C. Molinas.
The author of the “Vojenyj osvetomitel” platform expressed the view that this may be a sign that Starlink is being used deeper into Russian territory or that the Ukrainian armed forces are using a relay network similar to the Russian armed forces’ network.
Most likely, a relay system is being used in which one of the drones is over Ukrainian territory, analyst Kirill Mikhailov told the news portal “Agentstvo”.
A sign of Starlink operation over Russia for me would be operator-controlled strikes carried out at a distance greater than 200 km from the border or sea,” he added.
Mesh networks are a more likely guess than Starlink starting to operate on Russian territory, agreed a representative of the Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT) group.
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