When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, few people thought of satellite Internet as strategic, but what began as an emergency request made on Twitter became one of the most consequential infrastructure decisions of the war.
At 4:04 a.m. on February 26, 2022, Ukraine’s Vice Prime
Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, asked Elon Musk to activate SpaceX’s Starlink service over Ukraine. That
same day, Musk replied that service was active, and within forty-eight hours, a
truckload of terminals arrived. Minutes after their arrival, Ukrainian engineer
Oleg Kutkov posted a speed test from Kyiv. Starlink was live.
At the time, this looked like a dramatic but limited
response—an emergency patch to help a government under attack stay online. Over
the next three years, it became something much more consequential: a privately
owned satellite network evolved into a core layer of wartime infrastructure.
Today, there may be as many as 200,000 terminals in Ukraine, making it the biggest Starlink user in Europe.
I have been writing about Starlink in Ukraine since those
first days of the invasion, beginning with early observations on connectivity,
coverage, and ground-station dependence, and following its rapid expansion into
government, military, energy, healthcare, and civilian use. Those earlier
pieces are collected here on CircleID (see links below). This post is
not another update. It is a synthesis of what the Starlink experience in Ukraine
tells us about Internet infrastructure in war and dependency.
From novelty to infrastructure
In the earliest phase, the number of Starlink terminals in
Ukraine was small, but their value quickly became clear. A handful of portable
terminals in the hands of senior officials, military commanders, communications
staff, and journalists could preserve continuity of government if fiber lines
were cut, cellular towers destroyed, or local networks surveilled or jammed.
By mid-March 2022, more than 5,000 Starlink terminals were operating in Ukraine. Terminals were
used by the armed forces, energy companies, emergency services, hospitals,
NGOs, journalists, and local governments. In some towns, a single terminal
provided backhaul connectivity for thousands of civilians.
Political and Army leaders used Starlink for military planning and decision-making. Starlink also facilitated propaganda and foreign relations. We saw videos of President Zelensky at the front lines, meeting foreign leaders, and addressing foreign parliaments. We also saw daily evidence of Russian atrocities on Telegram and in the news.
Software-defined warfare
Early Starlink terminals depended upon ground stations in
neighboring countries -- Poland, Lithuania, and Turkey. Coverage and
availability varied by geography, but performance was consistently good enough
for coordination and reporting. Reliability, not elegance, was the wartime
requirement.
Then the Russian forces began jamming Starlink terminals. SpaceX responded not by shipping new hardware, but by pushing software updates. Roaming was enabled, allowing terminals to be used briefly, powered down, moved, and used again. Power consumption was reduced so terminals could operate from vehicle outlets. Jamming countermeasures were deployed over the air. (These changes occur without the delay of traditional military procurement cycles).
This was a glimpse of a new kind of infrastructure contest: electronic warfare meeting software-defined networks. Ukraine has given us a clear example of how modern Internet systems blur the boundary between civilian engineering and military operations, and shown us new skills that are needed.
Starlink and drones -- over land and on sea
Starlink’s military significance became clearest when paired
with drones.
Ukrainian reconnaissance units used Starlink to relay
imagery and targeting data from surveillance drones to artillery units,
shortening sensor-to-shooter loops. Drones equipped with thermal cameras hunted
at night. Others documented battlefield damage and war crimes. Starlink did not
make this possible on its own—but it made it scalable.
At the same time, drone footage flooded social media and news outlets. Open-source intelligence groups analyzed videos and satellite imagery. Journalists verified claims. Governments responded. The Internet did not merely report the war; it became one of its primary theaters.
Civilian support ecosystems
By 2023, tens of thousands of terminals were in Ukraine, and
distribution channels, training, repair, and modification were needed. Ukraine
built a distributed ecosystem of engineers, service centers, and informal
supply chains capable of repairing damaged terminals, adapting them for mobile
and battlefield use, and keeping them operational under harsh conditions. A
consumer product had become military infrastructure, often acquired, modified,
and maintained by civilians.
This civilian technical mobilization—much of it
voluntary—was as important to Starlink’s effectiveness as the satellites
themselves. Without it, the system would have degraded quickly under
battlefield conditions.
This was possible because the digital transformation in Ukraine began years before the Russian invasion. A Harvard study reports that before the war, Ukraine was arguably the number one country in the world regarding the pace and speed of digital transformation. The mobilization of Ukraine's commercial and technical Internet community should be noted and serve as a warning to other nations that are not as well prepared.
Dependence
By 2024 and 2025, Starlink was no longer an emergency backup
but a routine part of military and civilian operations. That dependence carried
risks. Ukraine’s experience highlighted the strategic implications of relying
on privately owned, globally operated infrastructure whose technical evolution,
pricing, and policy decisions ultimately lie outside national control – with
Elon Musk in this case.
The lesson is not that Starlink is unreliable or that
commercial systems should be avoided. On the contrary, Ukraine’s experience
demonstrates the extraordinary value of Starlink. The lesson is that
connectivity has become a strategic asset that must be planned with redundancy,
diversification, and governance in mind—long before a crisis begins.
Today, OneWeb is Starlink's only operational commercial low-Earth orbit (LEO) competitor, and it is not close to being able to provide the service Starlink does. I hope the war in Ukraine is over before others, such as Amazon, Telesat, and IRIS^2, are ready to offer meaningful competition to Starlink, and I worry that, if Starship proves to be economically viable, the gap will grow significantly.
Three years on, it is clear that LEO satellite connectivity is strategic, and when strategic infrastructure depends on privately owned networks, domestic competence, governance, redundancy, and accountability become matters of national security—not afterthoughts.
Earlier posts in this series include:
SpaceXStarlink Service in Ukraine Is an Important Government Asset
SpaceXStarlink in Ukraine—A Week Later
FiveThousand SpaceX Starlink Terminals for Ukraine
TheUnprecedented Role of the Internet in the War in Ukraine
CivilianTech Mobilization in Ukraine
Starlink Is Critical in Support of Ukraine, and It Will Continue
