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Ukraine says Starlink's global outage hit its military communications
Published by Global Banking and Finance Review
Posted on July 25, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 22, 2026
Global Banking and Finance Review
Company
Published by Global Banking and Finance Review
Posted on July 25, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 22, 2026
A global Starlink outage disrupted Ukrainian military communications for 2.5 hours, highlighting the risks of reliance on satellite systems.
By Max Hunder
KYIV (Reuters) -Starlink systems used by Ukrainian military units were down for two and a half hours overnight, a senior commander said, part of a global issue that disrupted the satellite internet provider.
Ukraine's forces are heavily reliant on thousands of SpaceX's Starlink terminals for battlefield communications and some drone operations, as they have proved resistant to espionage and signal jamming throughout the three and a half years of fighting Russia's invasion.
Starlink experienced one of its biggest international outages on Thursday when an internal software failure knocked tens of thousands of users offline.
"Starlink is down across the entire front," Robert Brovdi, the commander of Ukraine's drone forces, wrote on Telegram at 10:41 p.m. (1941 GMT) on Thursday.
He updated his post later to say that by about 1:05 a.m. on Friday the issue had been resolved. He said the incident had highlighted the risk of reliance on the systems, and called for communication and connectivity methods to be diversified.
"Combat missions were performed without a (video) feed, battlefield reconnaissance was done with strike (drones)," Brovdi wrote.
Oleksandr Dmitriev, the founder of OCHI, a Ukrainian system that centralises feeds from thousands of drone crews across the frontline, told Reuters the outage showed that relying on cloud services to command units and relay battlefield drone reconnaissance was a "huge risk".
"If connection to the internet is lost ... the ability to conduct combat operations is practically gone," he said, calling for a move towards local communication systems that are not reliant on the internet.
Although Starlink does not operate in Russia, Ukrainian officials have said that Moscow's troops are also widely using the systems on the frontlines in Ukraine.
(Reporting by Max HunderEditing by Frances Kerry)
Starlink is a satellite internet constellation developed by SpaceX, providing high-speed internet access globally, particularly in remote areas.
Military communications refer to the systems and methods used by armed forces to transmit information and coordinate operations.
Signal jamming is the intentional interference with communications, often used in military contexts to disrupt enemy communications.
Satellite internet is a type of internet connection that uses satellite technology to provide internet access, especially in areas without traditional infrastructure.
Drone operations involve the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for various purposes, including surveillance, reconnaissance, and combat.
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