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Russia is trying to cut off Ukraine’s access to Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites, analysts said.
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They said this had not been achieved despite the development of a growing arsenal of electronic warfare systems.
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Satellites have proven vital in military operations and communications between Ukrainian troops.
Russia is trying to cut off Ukraine’s access Elon Musk’s Starlink satellitesAccording to space warfare analysts.
Since the beginning of the war, Russia has been using jamming systems to deny Ukrainian forces access to commercial satellites.
There is Mixers were installed in their tanks interfering with satellite signals and preventing exploding drones, Disrupted Ukraine’s GPS-guided bombsAnd Ukraine’s drones are stuckUkrainian operators are being forced come closer to their targets on the front lines.
Access to satellites played a critical role in Ukraine’s defense against Russia. especially access to Musk’s satellite network.
Satellite internet kept Ukrainians online and their businesses running during the war. It also made it easier for soldiers to communicate on the front lines and for weapon systems and unmanned aerial vehicles to continue operating.
At the same time, Russia’s jamming has become increasingly better. Disrupting Ukraine’s most advanced weaponsblocking Ukraine’s combat capacity.
But Russian efforts to cut off Ukraine’s access to Starlink satellites have so far failed, space warfare analysts said.
Jamming resistant signals
“Russia certainly wants to find a way to block Ukraine’s use of Starlink. But that’s much easier said than done because of the architecture of the constellation,” Brian Weeden, chief program officer at the nonprofit Secure World Foundation, told Business Insider.
Starlink’s signals are stronger and more intense because its satellites operate at a much lower altitude than geostationary satellites. According to Starlink’s website.
Because Starlink satellites are closer to Earth, latency (the delay between a user’s action and the response on the network) is shorter. This speeds up streaming, online gaming, video conferencing and other activities.
In the context of electronic warfare, this makes Starlink’s signals much harder to jam, Weeden said. This means Russian hackers have so far been unable to hack Starlink, he added.
Although there is “very little” open data on Russia’s electronic attacks on Starlink, Weeden said his efforts have not yielded much success.
“They keep trying, but they don’t seem to be very successful,” said Kari Bingen, director of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a senior fellow in the International Security Program.
He said Starlink satellites are both “resilient” and “agile” and that Starlink operators are constantly updating their software to overcome Russian attacks.
satellites crashing
According to Counterspace Timeline Russia has attempted to approach, target or infiltrate foreign satellite networks many times since its invasion of Ukraine as part of the Aerospace Security Project.
Russian hackers on February 24, 2022, the first day of the occupation started A cyber weapon against the American satellite communications provider Viasat, which provides military communications services to Ukraine.
The attack hit numerous satellite communications stations, affecting hundreds of thousands of people in Ukraine and Europe.
According to a US evaluation Following the cyberattack, Russia launched cyberattacks on commercial satellite communications networks to disrupt Ukraine’s command and control during the initial invasion.
In March 2022, Finnair reported several cases of GPS jamming as its aircraft approached Kaliningrad, Russia. According to Reuters.
The President of Finland at the time, Sauli Niinisto meeting With Joe Biden to discuss strengthening defense ties between Finland and NATO in response to the Ukraine invasion.
SpaceX, which owns Starlink, was also attacked in April 2022.
An unnamed Pentagon official said its engineers were fighting off Russian jamming attacks by updating the system’s software. I told BI In that case.
Inside Publish on X A month after the attack, Musk said Starlink had “so far resisted Russia’s cyberwarfare interception and hacking attempts.”
But he also said Russian hackers were “stepping up their efforts.”
No other Russian jamming or hacking attacks on Starlink have been reported or publicly disclosed.
SpaceX has refused to provide BI updates on Russia’s attempts to jam or hack its Starlink satellites.
Russia’s growing arsenal
Russia is developing an arsenal of electronic warfare systems aimed at disrupting communications satellites. According to Space Watch Global.
These are the truck-mounted mobile jamming communications station R-330Zh Zhitel and the Bylina-MM, a system designed to suppress communications satellites.
They have antennas mounted on trucks that transmit a high-powered signal to try to saturate all the receivers tuned to Starlink frequencies.
Another is the Krasukha-4 mobile EW system, which can counter airborne early warning and control systems (AWACS) and other airborne radars with a range of about 300 kilometers, according to Space Watch Global.
According to leaked US secret intelligence document Obtained According to the Washington Post’s report last year, Russia had also been testing Tobol electronic warfare systems for several months, hoping to block Starlink’s signals.
Russia also has a wide range of counterspace weapons, such as direct-ascent anti-satellite (ASAT) missiles and powerful lasers that can destroy satellites in orbit.
Ukraine took a step back
Ukraine was targeting them. It was revealed that last July, Ukrainian special forces destroyed a Tirada and a “Leer-2” electronic system with unmanned aerial vehicles. video shared by the command of the forces.
In November, the Ukrainian army, among them “Pole-21“electronic warfare system and Svet-KU.
As recently as January, the same special forces aforementioned They helped destroy the Russian Tirada-2, a portable radio-electronic suppression system designed to intercept communications satellites, interfering with satellite communications in eastern Ukraine.
Bingen said it was “not surprising” that Ukrainian forces wanted to remove these jammers from the battlefield because they harmed drones and sensitive munitions.
“This kind of, this area of electronic warfare is going to increase more and more,” Bingen said.
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