Ukraine and SpaceX say they recently worked together to prevent strikes by Russian drones that relied on Starlink, and plan to soon disable any unregistered Starlink terminals to keep Russia’s military from using the satellite broadband network over Ukrainian territory.
Ukrainians will soon have to register their Starlink terminals to be added to a whitelist. According to the Ukraine Ministry of Defense in a press release today, “only verified and registered terminals will be allowed to operate in the country. All others will be disconnected.”
The ministry said Ukraine’s Minister of Defense, Mykhailo Fedorov, “emphasized that the only technical solution to counter this threat is to introduce a ‘whitelist’ and authorize all terminals.” Fedorov added, “This is a necessary step by the Government to save Ukrainian lives and protect critical energy infrastructure.”
In recent days Fedorov has posted several times on SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s X social network about Russian forces using Starlink and Ukraine’s efforts to counter that. On January 29, Fedorov said his office reached out to SpaceX hours after receiving “reports that Russian drones equipped with Starlink connectivity were operating over Ukrainian cities,” and that Ukraine “proposed concrete ways to resolve the issue.”
Fedorov reported that SpaceX began developing a fix right after the contact. Musk wrote yesterday, “Looks like the steps we took to stop the unauthorized use of Starlink by Russia have worked. Let us know if more needs to be done.”
Fedorov said yesterday that thanks to “the first steps taken in recent days, no Ukrainians have been killed by Russian drones using Starlink.” He added the ministry “will share instructions for Ukrainian users to register their Starlink terminals for verification” shortly, and that registration “will be simple, fast, and user-friendly.”
Under the whitelist scheme, residents must make “one visit to the nearest Administrative Services Center,” a step Fedorov described as “free, fast, and without excessive bureaucracy.” Businesses can verify Starlink terminals online, while the military and service members will use different registration systems. Service members with private Starlink terminals will “only need to add the terminal to the ‘whitelist’ to prevent disconnection.”
