MOSCOW, October 14. /TASS/. A number of cyber operations by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) against Russia may be disrupted or delayed due to SpaceX limiting the speed of Starlink satellite Internet terminals used by Ukrainian security agencies, Sergey Trukhachev, a technical and digital security expert, told TASS.
Earlier, Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine’s parliament) deputy Alexey Goncharenko (listed in Russia as a terrorist and extremist) stated that the Ukrainian armed forces are 200% dependent on Starlink satellite Internet.
"There are unlikely to be any significant changes in the SBU’s work given the use of stationary terminals. However, considering the interconnected nature of this infrastructure, the restriction may affect both Ukrainian fraudulent call centers and a number of cyber operations--causing short-term glitches, disruptions, and missed operational deadlines," Trukhachev said.
Furthermore, he noted that the SpaceX restrictions would directly impact the Ukrainian armed forces as well. "There will certainly be disruptions to specific missions in certain sectors of the front," the expert emphasized, specifying that this would primarily affect Ukrainian operators of high-speed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
On Wednesday morning, 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 overnight. According to him, this disrupter "a number of operations." Later, Sergey Sternenko, a former advisor to Ukraine’s defense minister, reported further SpaceX restrictions on the use of Starlink satellite communication terminals’ operating speed down to 60-70 km/h.