Reports that Russian forces were using the Starlink service within Ukraine first appeared in Ukrainian media, citing social-media posts. Prominent Russian volunteer groups supporting the Russian invasion have also shown off Starlink terminals purchased for army units.
In a Feb. 8 tweet, SpaceX officials said the company “does not do business of any kind with the Russian Government or its military. Starlink is not active in Russia, meaning service will not work in that country. SpaceX has never sold or marketed Starlink in Russia, nor has it shipped equipment to locations in Russia.”
Multiple Russian companies advertise Starlinks for sale, including iMiele.ru and DJIRussia.
“If Russian stores are claiming to sell Starlink for service in that country, they are scamming their customers,” the tweet said.
But Russians can easily acquire Starlinks from abroad and then bring them back to distribute to their forces, the second Ukrainian source noted.
I doubt that the irregulars using it have informed Moscow that they’re doing so; if they were, they’d presumably be told not to use it as well.
And you’ll have any random civilians that can get it.
If Ukraine only whitelists people who are working for them, though, then those people are gonna be the only sources.
They could maybe try to blacklist just the irregulars, leave any civilians.
In World War II, maybe.
If a listener has an antenna array and are logging received data, all they need to do is receive a definite signal once. Record a log with precise timestamps on two antenna arrays, and that’ll be enough to identify a transmission’s location.
EDIT: Here’s a $500 software-defined radio with an antenna array that random people can go out and buy capable of doing this.
https://www.rtl-sdr.com/df-aggregator-new-software-for-networked-radio-direction-finding-with-kerberossdr/