Issue 90

27 Jan: Article in Business Insider takes a look at Ukraine’s continued use of Starlink and Russia’s unsuccessful attempts to deny service. Russia has been using jamming systems to try to deny Ukrainian forces access to commercial satellites. Russia’s jamming has become increasingly better at disrupting Ukraine’s most advanced weapons, hindering Ukraine’s fighting capacity.

But Russia’s efforts to cut off Ukraine’s access to Starlink satellites have failed thus far.

– Russia has included Electronic Warfare (EW) since the beginning of its invasion of Ukraine. It has attached jammers to its tanks to interfere with satellite signals and disrupt exploding drones, jammed Ukraine’s GPS-guided bombs, and jammed Ukrainian drones, forcing Ukrainian operators to move closer to their targets on the front lines.

– In-spite all of their EW equipment and expertise, Russia has yet to find success against Starlink. Per Brian Wheedon (Secure World Foundation) “Russia absolutely would like to find a way to negate Ukraine’s use of Starlink. But that is much easier said than done because of the architecture of the constellation.”

– Starlink’s signals are stronger and more concentrated because its satellites operate at a far lower altitude than geostationary satellites.

– There is “very little” open data about Russia’s electronic attacks on Starlink, Weeden said its efforts don’t appear to have yielded much success.

– Kari Bingen, the director of the Aerospace Security Project, said: “They keep trying, but they don’t seem very successful.”

– She said Starlink satellites are both “resilient” and “agile,” with Starlink operators constantly updating their software to overcome Russian attacks.

– Starlink first came under attack in April 2022, but SpaceX engineers fought off Russian jamming attacks by updating the system’s software.

– No other Russian jamming or hacking attacks against Starlink have been reported.

– Russia has deployed its full arsenal of EW systems to Ukraine. This includes the Krasukha-4 mobile EW system, which can counter airborne early warning and control systems and other airborne radars within a range of about 186 miles.

– According to a leaked US classified-intelligence document obtained by the Washington Post last year, Russia has been testing its Tobol electronic-warfare systems for several months, hoping to obstruct Starlink’s signals.

– Ukraine has been targeting Russian EW systems. Special forces appeared to destroy a Tirada and a “Leer-2” electronic system with drones in a video shared by the command of the forces. Ukraine’s military reported destroying multiple Russian systems including a “Pole-21” electronic-warfare system and a Svet-KU. The same special forces said they helped destroy a Russian Tirada-2 that was blocking satellite communications in eastern Ukraine.