Ukraine Says Global Starlink Outage Crippled Its Military Communications
In a global outage that lasted around two and a half hours overnight, Ukraine’s military units relying on SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet lost connectivity, disrupting operations along the entire frontline.
Ukraine has depended heavily on thousands of Starlink terminals for secure battlefield communications and drone operations since Russia’s 2022 invasion. The system’s resilience against espionage and jamming made it a backbone of the country’s defense communications for over three years.
According to Ukrainian drone forces commander Robert Brovdi, who shared the disruption via Telegram, “Starlink is down across the entire front.” He confirmed that service was fully restored by about 1:05 a.m. local time the following day. Brovdi emphasized that critical combat missions proceeded without video feeds, and battlefield reconnaissance relied on strike drones operating in degraded communication conditions.
Oleksandr Dmitriev, founder of OCHI—a system aggregating drone video across Ukraine’s frontlines—warned that relying on cloud-based satellite networks poses a “huge risk.” He cautioned that without internet connectivity, combat operations become virtually impossible and urged a shift towards more localized, non‑internet‑dependent communication systems.
Though Starlink is officially unavailable in Russia, Ukrainian officials say Russian forces have nonetheless made extensive use of the service along the same front lines.
The outage stemmed from an internal software failure in Starlink’s core network, as acknowledged by SpaceX, and affected tens of thousands of users across multiple regions. Service was mostly restored after roughly 150 minutes.
This incident highlights the growing importance—and fragility—of satellite internet for military and civilian operations alike. Experts caution that as dependence on such systems increases, so does the risk posed by software faults or other systemic failures.
What This Means:
The outage underlines the strategic vulnerability of relying heavily on a single communication provider, especially in conflict zones.
For Ukrainian forces, which rely on real‑time data and drone feeds, even short disruptions can critically impede battlefield effectiveness.
Ukrainian voices are calling for investment in more decentralized, locally controlled communication networks to reduce operational risk.