Ukrainian officials presented fresh claims that Russian forces are using satellite internet terminals made by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, a day after the billionaire expressed skepticism that Ukraine could prevail in the war with Russia.
Russian forces have purchased satellite internet terminals made by SpaceX in Arab countries and used them at the front line, according to Ukrainian officials, potentially undercutting a major battlefield advantage for Kyiv’s army.
Meanwhile, in a forum on his social-media platform X, Musk said Monday that “there is no way in hell” that Russian President Vladimir Putin could lose the war on Ukraine.
On Tuesday, Ukraine’s military-intelligence agency, known as HUR, posted an audio recording online that it said was intercepted from Russian radio communications. In the recording, two men can be heard speaking in Russian about how to get Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet system.
“Arabs bring everything to us: wires, Wi-Fi, router…,” says one of the men, who HUR says are Russian troops. The men say the devices each cost 200,000 Russian rubles, or about $2,200.
Starlink, which is more secure than cell or radio signals, is considered so vital to Ukrainian operations that the Pentagon struck a deal with SpaceX last year to fund access for Kyiv’s forces. Up to now, Russian forces have had no similarly secure communications system.
SpaceX didn’t respond to a request for comment on Tuesday. Musk has denied previous reports that Moscow is purchasing Starlink systems.
“A number of false news reports claim that SpaceX is selling Starlink terminals to Russia. This is categorically false,” Musk wrote in a post on X on Sunday. “To the best of our knowledge, no Starlinks have been sold directly or indirectly to Russia.”
In addition, responding to reports in Ukrainian media that Russia was obtaining Starlink terminals in Dubai, Starlink posted on X last week that the devices can’t be obtained there.
Neither Musk nor Starlink has responded directly to questions about whether the devices could be obtained in other countries and used in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine.
The Russian Defense Ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Access to Starlink has been a politically charged issue since early in the war, when Musk decided to make the service available in Ukraine. Last year, when SpaceX said it could no longer fund access for Kyiv, the Pentagon agreed to pay to keep the service running. Private donors, governments and other organizations also pay for terminals.
Musk said in September that earlier in the war, he declined a request to activate Starlink service around Sevastopol in Crimea to avoid directly involving his space company with what he described as a plan to sink Russian ships there.
Musk said that if he had agreed to it, SpaceX would have been “complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation.” He didn’t address how this was different from Ukraine’s use of Starlink in many other operations.
Like other space communications systems, Starlink relies on satellites in orbit, infrastructure called ground stations and terminals to allow people to tap in to its high-speed internet connections.
For users, Starlink is designed to be simple and easy: The main part of the kit customers buy is a flat antenna array that needs an unobstructed view of the sky to connect with satellites.
SpaceX wields significant control over where it offers service and where it doesn’t. That is important for the company because it doesn’t want to provide connections to users in countries where regulators haven’t permitted its use.
However, geographically targeting the service isn’t completely perfect, meaning users could potentially pick up signals outside of authorized locations, people familiar with satellite technology say. For example, some regulators in African countries have warned citizens against acquiring Starlink equipment, saying they haven’t licensed the service.
It isn’t clear exactly how SpaceX makes determinations about where in Ukraine to provide Starlink service and where potentially to cut it off. The company has a contract with the Pentagon to provide connections in the country, but defense officials haven’t disclosed whether military planners instruct SpaceX about where it should target service—avoiding Russian-held areas in the country, for example.
SpaceX is able to track Starlink users within specific geographic areas, but distinguishing Ukrainian customers from unauthorized Russian troops poses a challenge.
“It’s incredibly difficult when you don’t know who’s using what,” a U.S. government official familiar with the matter said. “Maybe you could catch some of them, but you couldn’t catch them all and you might accidentally turn off some Ukrainian terminal.”
Russian forces would need to acquire Starlink equipment to tap in to the service and go through a company-controlled process to initiate service.