“We know the military is using them for comms, and that’s OK,” Shotwell added. “But our intent was never to have them use it for offensive purposes.” …
That same month, there were reports that the Starlink signal had been restricted and was not available past the front line as Ukrainian troops tried to advance, essentially hamstringing their efforts to retake territory from the Russians.
The Ukrainians have shown themselves to be quite innovative. It’s a shame that this tool is being taken away from them, as it will undoubtedly prolong the war. Questions: 1) Could the U.S. and/or NATO and/or the European Union provide Internet service to the Ukrainian military? Maybe using satellites or aircraft? 2) Legally, would that be an act of war? If so, how is it different from providing weapons?
For that attack, Ukrainian losses were measured in anti-tank mines tripped by the Russian forces and artillery shells that had that area already ranged. This wasn’t the trench to trench warfare near Bahkmut.
Well, for those pictured vehicles, yeah, but not for the attacks around Vuhledar as a whole. Russian forces did advance significantly from Pavlivka towards Vuhledar, and for a day or two held positions in an outlying portion of Vuhledar.* Based on Ukrainian reports, Russian forces have largely been pushed back to their starting point. But there have been some Ukrainian losses. Their positions have been hit with Russian thermobaric artillery, and there’s been some house to house fighting.
Vuhledar is a very compact town of highrises housing the miners from the coal mine just to the east.
Russian forces briefly occupied the low density area southeast of the road, and the hospital at the southwest edge of town. They’ve been mostly pushed back to their starting positions in Pavlivka and Mykilske. My understanding, though I haven’t looked at this in detail, is that the mass armoured vehicle losses are located along the tree lines extending north from Mykilske towards the mine. I’m sure they’ve been precisely geolocated, but I haven’t sought out that information.
The best source of information on this area of the conflict that I’ve seen is @Tatarigami_UA who has posted several updates on the situation there.
The trench warfare in eastern Ukraine has been likened to the Great War. Also, Russian infantry advancing across huge open fields and getting obliterated is akin to “going over the top” from the same war.
Early in the war, Russia had lots of equipment, but a deficit of manpower. Now, they have a deficit of equipment, lots of it having been destroyed in war, and an excess of manpower, from the partial mobilisation and formation of penal battalions. The Russians seem to have been a little bit more cautious about using armoured vehicles on the front line in recent months and instead have increased the use of foot soldiers for advancing into enemy territory. The terrain in southern and eastern Ukraine is not suited to foot soldiers, though, being mostly huge open fields, which then leads to trench warfare as foot soldiers cannot successfully advance without taking huge casualties. In the Great War, this deadlock on the Western Front was partially broken by the invention of tanks, which ultimately led to the mobile warfare of the Second World War, with armoured divisions of tanks and mechanized/motorized infantry making rapid breakthroughs and advances into enemy territory. I’m guessing that the increased efficiency and range of man-portable anti-tank weapons, combined with drone reconnaissance spotting for artillery, has blunted the effectiveness of WWII-style armoured warfare in Ukraine, bringing a WWI-style deadlock.
I don’t know so I’m asking:
Could Ukraine put a hot-spot/router or something else in between Starlink and internet dependent equipment to filter out whatever it’s blocking?
I don’t know enough about how they’re blocking this traffic or how that traffic is being used to control a drone, but I know enough about TCP/IP and networks to think that’s an unlikely solution. But the devil is in the details there, and I’d need more info to answer it with anything more than a “probably not”.
From the descriptions in the press, it sounds like Starlink is geofencing Ukraine’s receivers: if a ground station is outside some definition of Ukrainian territory the network cuts it off. That renders the network unavailable for offensive action beyond those borders.
Depending on how the geofence is drawn, it might cut off deep drone attacks (like the drone boats), ground offensives into historically-Ukrainian but Russian-held territories, or even field use in contested battlefront areas.
Wonder how difficult it would be for the US to chip in with a few covert airstrikes. A B-2 that dropped a few bombs here and there on Russian positions (no more than 30 miles from Ukrainian front lines) might be perceived as being the doing of Ukrainian drones, rocket artillery or whatnot, but make a valuable little bit of contribution to the war effort.
For clarification, I’m not debating the politics of it, but just asking about the technological feasibility of it.
That is it, this is a thread ban for you. This could be a new thread idea, but is a clear hijack of this thread. I’ve noted you too often in this thread. You even seem to be partially aware of that as you mentioned the political aspect also.
Win/loss is judged on the balance of what you’ve won and what it cost to win it. This has cost Russia an immense degradation to their military to the point of virtual debilitation, including major loss of lives and equipment and plummeting morale, it has revealed to the world their humiliating military ineffectiveness, incompetence, and rampant corruption, and it has created a very major hit to their entire national economy that make take generations to recover from, if they ever do.
How much territory do they have to gain to make up for all that?
This invasion is without a doubt the most major misstep in Putin’s career, and it will cost him dearly.
I saw that too, and while it certainly seems plausible enough from the standpoint of being consistent with Russia’s usual M.O., I could also see this ‘discovery’ as being a Ukrainian intel or misinformation op.