Starlink restrictions could weaken Ukraine's air defences, former NATO official warns

Starlink's satellite broadband service became available in Ukraine just days after Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022. It's owned by Elon Musk's company, SpaceX, and it makes it possible for Ukraine to guide its long-range drones to their targets. Starlink is also vital for battlefield communications, with military units using its satellite internet to coordinate. Its resistance to signal jamming makes it a crucial tool for delivering supplies to the front line. It is not the first time SpaceX is suspected of restricting Starlink access in Ukraine. William Albrecht is a senior fellow at the Pacific Forum. He's also a former arms control director at NATO. Sir, you're joining us from Berlin. It's good to have you on the program. We want to try and understand with you how significant this could be. If this Starlink restriction lasts, what is lost for the Ukrainian military? Well, as you point out, it is, you know, the Starlink, especially Starshield, which is the very high-end military capability, is crucial to Ukraine's drone effort. The high-end capability allows, especially for control of drones that are moving at very high speeds towards mobile targets, and that includes for drone strikes as well as intercepts of cheaper Russian drones or even of their slower cruise missiles. So that part of Starlink is incredibly important. And if that is being limited, and it appears that's what's being sort of throttled right now, the speed of these communications is being slowed down, that means that to strike these moving targets becomes much harder. It does not appear that the rest of Starlink is being interfered with. In other words, the regular communications that are so critical for command and control movement and logistics, it appears that those are OK. But if Ukraine can't use Starshield to intercept incoming drones and missiles, nor to attack mobile Russian targets, then that's going to severely restrict Ukraine's military capabilities in the battlefield. Ukraine has been very successful of late in its long-range strikes deep inside Russian territory, whether it's against Russian data centers, Russian energy targets. Would those be impacted if Ukraine loses Starlink? Because we've been saying Starlink is how they guide their long range projectiles. Right. Well, so so, for instance, we're talking about the very high speed communication that's being interfered with. That's not as critical for hitting a fixed facility because it's not moving. You just need to tell the drone where to go if the drone gets blown off course or is in a lot of turbulence or is trying to dodge incoming fire, then that becomes a concern. But when you're talking about a drone or a missile striking a fixed facility where we know exactly where it is, like an oil refinery or a fueling point, those immediate communications become a little bit less vital, less important. So oddly enough, this interference, which may be really crucial for battlefield targeting, is less crucial for fixed targets. And so for a lot of these things, they just program in the, you know, the coordinates of where the thing is. It's not going to move. A refinery just can't move. So throttling the capabilities may not interfere as much with the long distance strikes. OK, so what you're saying is what Ukraine's military would lose if this continues is the ability to intercept incoming projectiles or on the offensive end to hit a moving target. if that lasts the most sorry go ahead go ahead yeah the most vital time critical targets you're right so this is so crucial right now as Russia is striking Ukraine's energy infrastructure to try to freeze the population as they move into winter you know being able to intercept uh cruise missiles and large-scale drone strikes is so critical people will die without this capability can that turn the tide of this war in Russia's favor it's hard to say i mean Ukraine is so resilient and has been so able to resist. And we have to remember, you know, a lot of the capabilities that Ukraine has developed have been recently developed through the crucible of the battlefield with new technologies being used. So I don't think it'll be quite as a decisive factor, but it will be incredibly demoralizing. And as I said, it'll just mean that Russia will be able to move more effectively on the battlefield, to be able to kill more Ukrainians with drones and missiles, and that'll have a demoralizing effect as we go through the winter. William Alberg, Senior Fellow at the Pacific Forum, thank you very much for joining us on Al Jazeera. Thank you.