If Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy needed a reminder that Ukraine’s war with Russia may well be decided in the skies by the nation with the most advanced weaponry, then it was delivered this week – seemingly by the United States.
On the night of Oct. 13-14, 2026, the guidance system Ukraine’s military uses to blunt Russia’s aerial attacks suddenly stopped working normally. The system, called Starshield, is funded by the U.S. government and run by Elon Musk’s low Earth orbit telecommunications company Starlink, part of SpaceX. Ukraine uses the system to counter strikes and to target Russian military forces and logistics in occupied Ukrainian territory. But new speed restrictions, imposed without notice remotely by code, contributed to multiple mission failures.
Zelenskyy described the move as a “big mistake.” Others, including Musk, pointed the finger at the U.S. government. Amid the blame game, the restrictions were just as suddenly removed: By Oct. 15, Starlink services had apparently been restored to full capacity.
As a scholar of geopolitics, I see the incident as a significant moment in a series of setbacks Ukraine has faced in recent months, as shifting military technologies and targeting alter the balance of power in the conflict. Technological dominance has been tilting toward Moscow of late, exposing Ukraine’s vulnerability to Russia’s relentlessly modernizing war machine. What was unexpected, though, was the power flex by computer code against Ukraine’s innovative defensive systems, apparently at the behest of the U.S. government.
A history of military innovation
The latest developments in Ukraine belong to a broader history of technological networks and geopolitics intersecting in ways that drive military innovation.
As far back as 1904, British geographer and politician Halford Mackinder observed that the new railway networks crossing Eurasia were changing the strategic geography of land power by reducing the time needed to move military forces across vast territories. His larger insight was that pioneering technological networks reconfigure how distance, mobility and military power relate to one another.
Mackinder’s land-power anxiety was compounded less than a decade later by the development of airpower. Bomb-delivering aircraft rendered countries vulnerable to attacks from above, fears made real during World War I.
This prompted the development of air defense and radar systems, which became ever more elaborate in the early Cold War. The development of hypersonic intercontinental missile technologies rendered these defenses obsolete, with the superpowers eventually accepting the dangerous condition of mutually assured destruction.
Fast-forward to today. Relatively cheap, unmanned aerial systems connected to low Earth orbit satellite networks have birthed a new frontier of difficult-to-defend-against innovations in aerial warfare.
And Russia’s war against Ukraine has dramatically accelerated this revolution. “Close the sky” was an early, unheeded plea from Zelenskyy to Ukraine’s allies to establish a no-fly zone over the country when Russia first invaded the country in February 2022.
But Ukraine did receive significant help from the U.S. in the form of satellite-based intelligence sharing. Starlink, which established its low Earth orbit internet service in May 2019, provided terminals and service to Ukraine for free after Russian strikes disrupted local internet networks.
But by late 2022, Starlink wanted payment for its services to Ukraine. The U.S. Department of Defense and the government of Poland stepped in to fund what later became distinct defense and civilian systems.
‘The battle for the sky’
A combination of networked technological systems and cheaper drones has transformed how the Russia-Ukraine war is fought. Where previously tanks and massed armed formations fought across relatively delineated front lines, now drones from either side battle in the sky.
These drones come in many different sizes and shapes. Some are low-altitude, short-range drones designed for a “kill zone” that ranges from 15 to 30 kilometers or more. Others are higher-altitude, midrange drones designed to attack behind enemy lines. Finally, there are far-range options designed to travel long distances to hit strategic targets, which have expanded from military sites to logistical hubs, warehouses and data centers.
The Ukraine war is now largely, as Zelenskyy declared this summer, a “battle for the sky.”
But that battle relies on a vast infrastructure that encompasses global supply chains running through China, funding systems that go through Washington, D.C., and Brussels, and drone assemblage factories traversing Russia and Ukraine.
There is also a vast telecommunications network that guides and controls drone systems. Parts of this are relatively localized radar towers and ground systems. But more are reliant on communication networks like Starlink, which presently comprises a constellation of 11,000 low Earth orbit satellites.
The capacity of remote pilots to steer mid- and long-range drones varies. Ukraine’s long-range drone attacks into Russia operate independently of Starlink. Most rely on internal terrain matching systems and automated target lock algorithms on their final approach.
Russia’s competitive advantage
In this battle for the sky, the pace of innovations is relentless. And since the summer, Russia has been gaining a relative advantage for two reasons. The first is Russia’s increasing production and use of ballistic missiles against Ukrainian cities, targeting energy systems, data centers, bridges and civilian apartment complexes.
Ukraine is mostly defenseless against the speed of these missiles because it lacks Patriot anti-missile systems. U.S. satellites usually provide alerts, but these too stopped a few days ago.
Secondly, Russia is increasing use of jet-powered Geran drones, based on Iranian designs, which are much faster than the previous generation and, consequently, more difficult to shoot down. Russia is also rapidly building out its own low Earth orbit system of communications called Rassvet.
More Ukrainians are dying as a result of these technological shifts. The logistical systems that keep Ukrainian front-line cities, which now includes Kyiv, functioning are being pushed to the brink.
As a result, the interference with Starshield and missile attack alerts came at a moment of intensified vulnerability and exposure for Ukrainians. In deference to a unilaterally declared “energy ceasefire” by Trump on Oct. 11, Kyiv did not attack Russian oil-refining facilities for three days. Russia, by contrast, continued its intense attacks on Ukrainian power systems. In the face of this imbalance, Zelenskyy vowed to restart Ukrainian attacks, come what may.
The implications beyond Ukraine
This latest power flex involving Starlink has wider implications, too.
SpaceX’s ongoing campaign to occupy low Earth orbit with 42,000 of its satellites is being facilitated by the Trump administration. But the power this concentrates in the hands of one corporation and person – SpaceX and Musk – has raised alarm bells.
Major countries and corporations are rushing to develop their own proprietary communications constellations. As a consequence, low Earth orbit is getting more crowded and geopolitically contested.
This latest incident underscores the potentially existential stakes for some countries of their reliance on private corporations for low Earth orbit telecommunications. No state, after all, wants its defensive systems to be at the mercy of unpredictable actors. The whole world is watching – and learning.
