“The war has returned to 2024, when they did not have superiority with drones”

But what role does it play? Elon Musk in this equation that mixes Wi-Fi, trenches and drones? The answer is SpaceX (Space Exploration Technologies Corporation), one of the companies founded by Musk, which provides satellite Internet services.

When the large-scale Russian invasion began, the controversial tycoon – also owner of Tesla and the social network formerly called Twitter – placed a good part of the satellite constellation over the Ukrainian sky that SpaceX orbited the planet, at about 550 kilometers altitude.

This allowed the Ukrainians connect to the Internet without depending on terrestrial antennas – that run the risk of being bombed, or that lose power if the electricity is cut – even in the middle of a siege.

And the connection was not limited to cities: if they had a receiver, they had Internet even if you were on the front lines of combat, inside a bunker or in a moving vehicle. Musk changed war forever with this movement, and made it possible to develop the use of unmanned vehicles later. Without your Starlinkthe drone war would be just science fiction.

But the use of this system, which is already marketed in 150 countries, is banned from Russia. In 2022 Elon Musk took sides on the side of the country that was being invaded, and today it is illegal to use Starlink both in the Russian Federation and in the part of Ukraine that is occupied by Moscow forces.

However, for more than a year, the Russian army was circumventing this ban massively purchasing Starlink antennas in third countries, and activating them with SIM cards that were not Russian.

Ukrainian troops found more of these portable Internet systems in enemy positions every day. But their complaints were ignored by SpaceX for months. Until an unexpected political change occurred.

The change came with Fedorov

Last January, Zelensky put one of his youngest politicians at the head of the Ministry of Defense: Mijailo Fedorov (34 years old), who until then had held the Digital Transformation portfolio – with a resounding commitment to the development of unmanned systems and the digitalization of public administrations in the midst of war.

Fédorov was one of the faces of Ukraine that had the most international projection in the field of new technologiesboth in European and American forums. With his approaches, he managed to modernize an army that had multiplied by four since 2022, and that needed to make up for its inferiority in weapons resources with technology.

Upon his appointment as the new Defense Minister, one of the first statements he made was that he and his advisors “knew the war from the battlefield, not from the offices,” promising that he would “build a system capable of stopping the enemy in the air, stop their ground advances and intensify the asymmetric and cyber attacks” of the Ukrainian Army.

A few days after those statements, Elon Musk blocked the Starlink access on the Russian side from the combat front – with immediate consequences for Moscow’s forces – and Fédorov publicly thanked him.

“After the disconnection of Starlink in the Russian positions, the coordination of enemy troops completely deteriorated. It became almost impossible for them to control everything: their infantry groups, the positions of their pilots, absolutely everything,” Commander Fox, of the 93rd Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian Army, explains to EL ESPAÑOL.

“In addition, it must be taken into account that the Russians also used small models – the Starlink Mini – to guide drones Shahed and other similar models. And since February its impact on us has been significantly reduced,” adds the officer, who works on the Donbass combat front.

“As soon as their satellite Internet systems were disabled, we practically we stopped suffering attacks with FPV during the day; because the Russians could not coordinate their pilots. They simply did not understand where they should fly, what objectives they should reach, the coordinates, etc.,” says Fox.

Fewer drones in the air

The truth is that, now, war correspondents are taken again to combat positions located less than 5 kilometers from the Russian lines. Something they had stopped doing due to the intensive use of FPV drones by the Russians, who used them to bomb any vehicle that approached the front line.

All the Ukrainian soldiers asked about this question have answered the same: “the change has been enormous,” “the Russian advance is now much slower,” “We can work like we did a year ago” were some of the responses.

The impact has been so devastating for the Russians that, at some points on the front line, It is the Ukrainians who are making progress. In just two months, Zelensky’s troops have recovered more than 400 square kilometers in the Zaporizhia region – southern front – where they are carrying out a counteroffensive; and the pressure has also eased along the Donbass front.

Starlink was key for Russian troops, both to operate their drones, as well as to relay intelligence information and communicate between different units. And it is quite surprising that they would have trusted these determining capabilities in a Western system that was not under their control.

Alternatives

“Now they are forced to use their own Wi-Fi bridging systembut this system does not provide the connection that Starlink offers and it is also not mobile,” continues Commander Fox. “Wi-Fi bridges are based on a series of repeaters from which the signals bounce; If one antenna fails, the entire Wi-Fi bridge stops working. That’s why we now focus on attacking these antennas. “If we hit those bridges, their coordination stops again.”

Two months after the blackout, Russian troops they have not found an alternative that allows them to work at the same level as satellite internet. And the traditional Wi-Fi stations that Fox talks about are not easy to camouflage on the battlefield – although images have been leaked of how they try to hide them in fake tree trunks, made of polystyrene.

“The repeaters are much larger than the Starlink antennas“, which can be placed on the ground and covered with a camouflage net, or even buried in a ditch and they continue to function,” explains the officer from the 93rd Brigade. “But those old antennas are more difficult to mask, they deteriorate more easily and also the connection is not the best,” he adds.

The experience of these four years of large-scale war in Ukraine tells us that Russian troops learn quickly from their tribulations, and also from the ingenuity of the Ukrainians – who were the pioneers in the use of Starlink and in the development of drones. And they are probably currently working on other alternatives to recover the connection that Elon Musk has turned off.

But until that happens, their tactical capabilities have been diminished and its progress has slowed considerably. Something that the Ukrainian Army is taking advantage of to frustrate the Russian spring offensive.