Starlink dispute spotlights Ukraine’s reliance on US in intensifying battle for the skies against Putin
If Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy needed a reminder that Ukraine’s war with Russia may well be decided in the skies by the nation with the most advanced weaponry, then it was delivered this week – seemingly by the United States.
On the night of Oct. 13-14, 2026, the guidance system Ukraine’s military uses to blunt Russia’s aerial attacks suddenly stopped working normally. The system, called Starshield, is funded by the U.S. government and run by Elon Musk’s low Earth orbit telecommunications company Starlink, part of SpaceX. Ukraine uses the system to counter strikes and to target Russian military forces and logistics in occupied Ukrainian territory. But new speed restrictions, imposed without notice remotely by code, contributed to multiple mission failures.
Zelenskyy described the move as a “big mistake.” Others, including Musk, pointed the finger at the U.S. government. Amid the blame game, the restrictions were just as suddenly removed: By Oct. 15, Starlink services had apparently been restored to full capacity.
As a scholar of geopolitics, I see the incident as a significant moment in a series of setbacks Ukraine has faced in recent months, as shifting military technologies and targeting alter the balance of power in the conflict. Technological dominance has been tilting toward Moscow of late, exposing Ukraine’s vulnerability to Russia’s relentlessly modernizing war machine. What was unexpected, though, was the power flex by computer code against Ukraine’s innovative defensive systems, apparently at the behest of the U.S. government.
The latest developments in Ukraine belong to a broader history of technological networks and geopolitics intersecting in ways that drive military innovation.
As far back as 1904, British geographer and politician Halford Mackinder observed that the new railway networks crossing Eurasia were changing the strategic geography of land power by reducing the time needed to move military forces across vast territories. His larger insight was that pioneering technological networks reconfigure how distance, mobility and military power relate to one another.
Mackinder’s land-power anxiety was compounded less than a decade later by the development of airpower. Bomb-delivering aircraft rendered countries vulnerable to attacks from above, fears made real during World War I.
This prompted the development of air defense and radar systems, which became ever more elaborate in the early Cold War. The development of hypersonic intercontinental missile technologies rendered these defenses obsolete, with the superpowers eventually accepting the dangerous condition of mutually assured destruction.
Fast-forward to today. Relatively cheap, unmanned aerial systems connected to low Earth orbit satellite networks have birthed a new frontier of difficult-to-defend-against innovations in aerial warfare.
And Russia’s war against Ukraine has dramatically accelerated this revolution. “Close the sky” was an early, unheeded plea from Zelenskyy to Ukraine’s allies to establish a no-fly zone over the country when Russia first invaded the country in February 2022.
But Ukraine did receive significant help from the U.S. in the form of satellite-based intelligence sharing. Starlink, which established its low Earth orbit internet service in May 2019, provided terminals and service to Ukraine for free after Russian strikes disrupted local internet networks.
But by late 2022, Starlink wanted payment for its services to Ukraine. The U.S. Department of Defense and the government of Poland stepped in to fund what later became distinct defense and civilian systems.
A combination of networked technological systems and cheaper drones has transformed how the Russia-Ukraine war is fought. Where previously tanks and massed armed formations fought across relatively delineated front lines, now drones from either side battle in the sky.
These drones come in many different sizes and shapes. Some are low-altitude, short-range drones designed for a “kill zone” that ranges from 15 to 30 kilometers or more. Others are higher-altitude, midrange drones designed to attack behind enemy lines. Finally, there are far-range options designed to travel long distances to hit strategic targets, which have expanded from military sites to logistical hubs, warehouses and data centers.
