Champion of Freedom : Elon Musk

"You [Elon Musk] are a true champion of freedom and a true friend of the Ukrainian people."

"Thank you for standing with us."

Ukraine Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov 

 

"Looks like the steps we took o stop the  unauthorized use of Starlink by Russia have worked."

"Let us know if more needs to be done."

Space X, Elon Musk 

 

"What everyone feared for a long time has happened." 

"Elon Musk flipped the switch … our communications are in chaos."

Yuriy Podolyaka, Crimea-based video blogger, Telegram 

 

"It is important to understand that relying on anything western in the current situation is dangerously overconfident."

"Even taking into account the active negotiations we are currently holding with the United States, that does not stop them from being our adversary."

Aleksey Zhuravlyov, State Duma lawmaker

A Ukrainian soldier using a Starlink terminal. Photograph: Reuters

 

"Its use made information exchange easier for the Russians, as it is quite difficult to jam. As a result, their airstrikes became more precise and coordination of unit movements improved." 

"Since the Ukrainians are successfully jamming everything else, the use of Starlink was vital for the Russians. It was briefly shut down at the start of February to identify terminals that the Russians were using after smuggling them in illegally. Communications have now been restored and the Russians have been cut off from it. But this is only one aspect; there are certainly many other factors at play, including the weather: The cold, snow and the difficult terrain." 

"In war, any tool that solves a problem is suitable. If the frequency bands used by the enemy get detected, they are immediately jammed and efforts are made to shut them down. But if you have any kind of internet connection that allows you to access and exchange information, that helps you out of trouble." 

Maj. Gen. (retired) Neeme Väli  

60 Starlink satellites being delivered from Cape Canaveral (photo taken 2019). Source: U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Zoe Thacker /

 

In the latest twist in a four-year-old war where a race for technological supremacy is being fought as much as the confrontations on the battlefield, Russian troops in Ukraine suddenly find themselves without their (illegal) Starlink satellite internet. Pro-war Russian military bloggers have been reporting that Space X's Elon Musk reacted to a Ukrainian request that he curtail access to his network.

 

While it is not yet completely known through speculation how serious a setback this will prove to be to the Russian forces, those same Russian military bloggers report frustration linked to communication problems on the front, with soldiers now deprived of the indispensable communications tool they had used for years through smuggled Starlink equipment linking them to the internet. 

 

Writing under the name Military Informant through the Telegram messaging app, a Russian blogger stated the change could conceivably put the Russian force back "a couple of years", forced to make use of outdated technologies such as wired internet, Wi-Fi and radio communications. "The Starlink saga has created a serious breach in communications, which the enemy may attempt to exploit", blustered Colonelcassad, a channel operated by Boris Rozhin, another Russian pro-war blogger. 

Ukrainian boxing brothers Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko with Starlink terminals shipped to Kyiv early on in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Vitali is Mayor of Kyiv. Source: Kyivcity.gov.ua /

 

Ukraine had recently taken note of Russia's use of the satellite internet network that had gone beyond simple communications connectivity, when Russia began equipping drones with Starlink, improving their targeting and making them more resistant to jamming. The quest for superior drones and greater impenetrable communications links controlling them speaks to the technological competitiveness of this war.  

 

Mykhailo Fedorov, newly appointed as Ukraine's defense minister had contacted SpaceX lat month. The result was  the  U.S. firm blocking access to Starlink in Ukraine other than for terminals registered and verified by the government. Starlink's compliance representing an early victory for the 35-year-old former tech entrepreneur who took the defense ministry last month.

 

Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, plans to launch its own satellite internet operation in low-earth orbit with production to begin this year with a launch planned next year. First deputy chairman of the defense committee in Russia's lower  house of Parliament, Aleksei A. Zhuraviev stated that Russia must seek alternatives: "It's important to understand that relying on anything Western in the current situation is overly presumptuous". 

 

SpaceX board member and Estonian-American Steve Jurvetson holding a holding a Starlink user terminal. Source: Steve Jurvetson from Los Altos, USA - Starlink Armada

 

"In January, the Russian side used around 6,000 different drones against Ukraine, in addition to roughly 150 missiles and about 5,000 glide bombs. That is a very large number of targets launched toward Ukraine on a daily basis."

"All of this must be responded to using various means that must be coordinated with each other. Ukraine has a very strong multi-layered air defense, but unfortunately the volume is so great, and of course air defense systems are also worn down in combat."

"There are simply too many Russian targets to respond to everything with one hundred percent effectiveness."

Maj. Gen. (retired) Neeme Väli   

Playing With Nuclear Fire

"Every morning we wake up and see that they have hit only residential homes."

"Our forces don't shoot back because the 30km (19-mile) zone around the power station is sacred. You don't want to shoot there. But the Russians are terrorists. There's nothing sacred to them."  

"It's meant to scare us, [Rockets have hit Nikopol every night since the middle of July]."

Local Businessman

A covered Russian tank outside the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant on 4 August   ENERGOATOM/Reuters

"As the initiator and main instigator of the Ukrainian crisis, Washington, while imposing unprecedented comprehensive sanctions on Russia, continues to supply arms and military equipment to Ukraine."

"Their ultimate goal is to exhaust and crush Russia with a protracted war and the cudgel of sanctions."

Beijing Ambassador to Moscow Zhang Hanhui

"The cowardly Russians can't do anything more so they strike towns ignobly, hiding at the Zaporizhzhia atomic power station."

Andrei Yermak, chief of staff to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

The outliers of the United Nations Security Council in lock-step denial of representing tyrannical governments coveting territory of neighbours and exercising their ambitious penchant for bullying and threatening and finally committing to a military advance to correct historical errors so they can 'reclaim' a territorial prize by absorbing another sovereign country's geography into their greater grasping fold. The mirror image of Moscow's 'special military operation' to bring Ukraine kicking and screaming back into the Soviet Union fold, is reflected in Beijing's plan to violently disabuse Taiwan that it is a separate country.

Mutual support for one another's irenic plans of absorption through violent takeover enables them to give each other comfort. Russia's experience with the West firmly clamping down on sanctions to fully impress on the Kremlin that its actions assault international norms presents as an example to Beijing, labouring under similar sanctions and for aspirationally awaiting the opportunity when it too feels prepared to launch an all-out conflict with Taiwan to achieve its goal of an 'individed China' 

Ukraine raises the alarm once again over the Russian military occupying the Ukrainian nuclear power plant representing the largest such facility in all of Europe, in a dangerously cavalier manner. Ranging from the storage of explosives and military equipment in sensitive areas of the nuclear plant, to recklessly firing off missiles from the plant's campus at surrounding towns where Ukrainian military units are stationed in the hope of driving out the Russian troops to reclaim the plant and its security.

Moscow for its part insists that the town Ukraine identifies as being targeted by Russian troops from within the power plant's footprint, Marhanets, claims that the Ukrainian military, stationed there, is using it as a staging platform to send rockets to hit Russian soldiers at the Zaporizhzhia plant. The alarm was raised in the West when the United Nations atomic energy watchdog warned of a potential nuclear disaster with the current situation, leading the Group of Seven leading industrialized countries to tell Russia it must return the plant to Ukraine.

This was once the Group of Eight, but after Russian rebels began their conflict in Ukraine's eastern province of the Donbas and Russia seized Crimea in 2014, Vladimir Putin was disinvited and the group reverted to its original members, as the Group of Seven. Ukraine's state nuclear power company Enerhoatom, warns that Russian shelling has compromised the plant, causing critical damage to two areas of the plant, creating the potential for devastation.

Containers with radioactive material might, they warn, also come under danger of shelling. In its own defence, Russia resorts to its usual stance of claiming to be acting responsibly, that it is Ukraine that is responsible for any dangerous situations eventuating because of its military's carelessness, repeating that Russian troops behave responsibly and never target civilians.

 

Ukrainian technicians remain at the plant, working to ensure whenever an emergency arises they're present to use their expertise in safety and security of the plant forestalling the possibility of a disaster. Needless to say, they have no control over what Russian troops do. What they do is shell surrounding towns from the relative safety of the nuclear plant in the knowledge that Ukrainian troops cannot afford to strike back and risk creating a more dangerous situation. 

 

According to Kyiv, roughly 500 Russian soldiers with heavy vehicles and weapons remain at the plant where they are behaving responsibly, ensuring the safety of the complex, as the Kremlin has it. The former's statement can be guaranteed to be correct, the latter's, true to form is a risible canard. Moscow and Vladimir Putin never uttered a lie they couldn't be proud of. 

"I am extremely concerned by the shelling yesterday at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, which underlines the very real risk of a nuclear disaster that could threaten public health and the environment in Ukraine and beyond."

"The IAEA has received information about this serious situation – the latest in a long line of increasingly alarming reports from all sides."

?According to Ukraine, there has been no damage to the reactors themselves and no radiological release. However, there is damage elsewhere on the site.?

"Military action jeopardizing the safety and security of the Zaporizhzya nuclear power plant is completely unacceptable and must be avoided at all costs.?

"Any military firepower directed at or from the facility would amount to playing with fire, with potentially catastrophic consequences."

"I strongly and urgently appeal to all parties to exercise the utmost restraint in the vicinity of this important nuclear facility, with its six reactors."

Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Mariano Grossi

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant outside the Russian-controlled city of Enerhodar, Ukraine. Photograph: Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters