Starlink terminals used by Ukrainian military units went dark for about two and a half hours overnight during what the company called a global disruption caused by internal software failures, Ukrainian commanders said.
“Starlink is down across the entire front,” Robert Brovdi, who leads Ukraine’s drone forces, wrote on Telegram at 10:41 p.m. (1941 GMT) on Thursday. He later said service was restored by about 1:05 a.m. Friday but warned the blackout exposed the danger of relying on a single system.
“Combat missions were performed without a (video) feed, battlefield reconnaissance was done with strike (drones),” he said, urging a diversification of communications and connectivity tools.
A separate drone commander, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive operations, said his unit postponed several combat missions because of the outage.
Oleksandr Dmitriev, founder of OCHI — a Ukrainian platform that aggregates feeds from thousands of frontline drone crews — called dependence on cloud-based services “a huge risk.” If internet access is lost, “the ability to conduct combat operations is practically gone,” he said, arguing for more local, non-internet networks.
Starlink, which says it serves more than 6 million users in roughly 140 countries and territories, acknowledged the disruption on X and said it was “actively implementing a solution.”
Vice President Michael Nicolls later apologized, citing “failure of key internal software services that operate the core network” and pledging to find the root cause.
Reuters reported that in 2022 Starlink owner Elon Musk ordered coverage cut in parts of Ukraine as Kyiv mounted a counter-offensive.
As of April 2025, Ukrainian officials say Kyiv has received more than 50,000 Starlink terminals.
Though Starlink does not operate in Russia, Ukrainian officials say Moscow’s troops widely use the systems on Ukraine’s front lines.
(jh)
Source: Reuters, The Kyiv Independent