LONDON, October 15. /TASS/. Restrictions on the Starlink satellite communications system in Ukraine have rendered a significant part of the Ukrainian armed forces’ drone arsenal unusable, The Daily Telegraph reported.
Pilots noticed sudden gaps of 10 to 20 seconds in their communications with the fast-moving aircraft. These changes "directly affected the use of the drones that use Starlink for control during flight," a Ukrainian soldier said. Some missions had to be cancelled, according to the publication.
A Ukrainian engineer who worked on managing Starlink systems told the newspaper that on Tuesday evening, soldiers from Ukraine’s 3rd Army Corps made "desperate requests for help" amid sudden communication problems.
Telegraph noted that the situation for Ukraine could worsen due to the likely suspension of intelligence exchange with Washington, which would deprive Kiev of any opportunity to counter attacks by the Russian Armed Forces.
Earlier, Sergey Beskrestnov, an adviser to Vladimir Zelensky on communications and unmanned systems, reported that SpaceX had limited the speed of Starlink satellite Internet terminals used by the Ukrainian army to 160 km/h. According to him, this disrupted "a number of operations."
Later, the head of SpaceX, Elon Musk, said that the Starlink system is not used for offensive combat operations, it is used only for defense and civilian purposes.