One technician climbing a tower. One FPV drone closing in. It sounds like a single tragic frame from an endless war. But it captures something larger: Russia's scramble to replace what Elon Musk took.

Earlier this month, Ukraine appealed directly to Musk, asking him to disable Russian military access to SpaceX’s Starlink internet system. The Russians had been running thousands of unauthorized terminals along the front — smuggled through Dubai and ex-Soviet republics, activated in countries where Starlink is legal, then shipped into the war zone.

What makes this more than a communications setback is something few outside the conflict fully grasp. Unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) are now coming to scale on both sides of this war. They haul ammunition and supplies into what soldiers call the kill zone, guided remotely by operators miles away. Starlink terminals mounted on board make that possible. Without Starlink, the robots stop. And soldiers go in instead.

The result, according to sources familiar with Russian battlefield operations, is that Russia is now losing even more soldiers than before — men replacing machines that no longer work.

  • Tony Bark@pawb.socialEnglish
    88·
    6 days ago

    I’m assuming Elon turned off Starlink access in Russian in an desperate attempt to save his crumbling reputation. Ironically, this only reveals just how dependent they were on his tech.

    • PugJesus@piefed.socialEnglish
      89·
      6 days ago

      God, it makes me more furious at him than ever. Not that he turned it off, but revealing just what a fucking dependency this has been the whole fucking time for Russia. How many Ukrainians have died because of Musk waiting 'til now to turn it off?

      Fuck.

      And no one suggest that one of the world’s richest men couldn’t have his fucking engineers figure out a solution to Russian-used Starlink terminals in Ukraine before four fucking years passed. “We can’t figure out how to distinguish our own devices” yeah fucking bet.

      • Tony Bark@pawb.socialEnglish
        36·
        6 days ago

        Yeah. Even if we go by the whole “they weren’t authorized” narrative, then that just makes it look like Elon turned a blind eye. How could you not know for that long!? Surely, they would have picked up on some anomaly in a fucking war zone.

        • snowdrop@lemmy.caEnglish
          24·
          6 days ago

          I wonder what really changed behind the scenes to make him take action. It makes me think that, after all, there isn’t Epstein-related kompromat on him. OTOH we already know he’s a k addled manchild so it doesn’t have to make sense.

    • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      22·
      6 days ago

      Yeah, his name popped up a whole lot in the recent Epstein releases, and I’m pretty sure this was part of his tactic to be like “no, wait, I’m one of the good guys”.

      So:

      • it’s good that he did this
      • phony stark is still a categorical piece of shit
  • Jiggle_Physics@piefed.zipEnglish
    73·
    6 days ago

    This really goes to show that these people have too much power. While this is good news for Ukraine, this is just a prime example of how the oligarchs control too many resources, and hold too much power.

  • Tar_Alcaran@sh.itjust.works
    131·
    6 days ago

    Imagine not even being able to build a secure radio in your country and being forced to rely on civilian tech.