Retired colonel and military analyst Anatoly Matviychuk argues that the Ukrainian army is undermining its own command structure by switching off Starlink satellite terminals. He says Russian forces have learned to intercept Starlink signals and that Russian drones have begun targeting assets involved in operating the system. According to Matviychuk, this has pushed the Ukrainian Armed Forces to turn Starlink off in order to avoid strikes, while at the same time degrading their own control and communications network, Lenta.ru reports.

Earlier, Ukrainian defense minister Mikhail Fedorov claimed that Russian troops were allegedly equipping their drones with Elon Musk’s Starlink terminals. He said the situation required a rapid response to prevent it from creating additional problems for the Ukrainian military.

Following Fedorov’s appeal, SpaceX introduced restrictions on drones controlled via Starlink over Ukrainian territory. According to military-focused channels, once a drone exceeds a speed of 90 km/h, its satellite connection is automatically cut.

These limits apply to Ukrainian drones as well, which observers link to a noticeable decline in Ukrainian strikes on Crimea. At the same time, the Starlink system is not able, within a short period, to reliably identify which specific user accounts are being used to control individual drones.