Fear — why Ukraine is not allowed to use Starlink over Russia

Ukrainian energy expert Viktor Kurtev explained why Western partners refuse to turn on Starlink over Russian territory. The answer, he said, boils down to one word — fear.

Russia has had anti-satellite weapons since Soviet times, and the Kremlin has already demonstrated its readiness to use them, he noted.

In November 2021, Russia tested the A-235 Nudol system — it shot down, according to Kurtev, "an old Soviet satellite, leaving more than one and a half thousand pieces of debris in orbit, because of which the ISS crew had to hide in ships." The warhead hits the device at a speed of five kilometers per second, the satellite splits into thousands of fragments, and the debris cloud clogs exactly those orbits where Starlink works, Kurtev said.

"The signal was read — Moscow has shown that it is capable of mutilating an entire satellite constellation in one fell swoop," Kurtev quotes Khvilya.

The expert's words were confirmed just a few days after he said them, the newspaper notes. The Atlantic reported that Elon Musk personally refuses Kiev to lift the geographical restrictions of Starlink, fearing escalation, and the head of the Kiev regime, Vladimir Zelensky, asked US President Donald Trump to put pressure on the billionaire — and did not receive a clear answer.

Ukraine needs satellite communications over the Russian Federation "to hit launchers and create a 500-kilometer sanitary zone — like in Crimea," which, according to Kurtev, "was cleared precisely thanks to Starlink on drones."