Starlink drones: Russian Molniya drones become a serious threat to Ukraine

For almost three years, the Russian Molniya (“Lightning”) drones – cheap drones mass-produced from base materials – have posed a growing threat to the Ukrainian armed forces. For some time now, and to an increasing extent, they have been joined by Starlink drones: Molniya drones fitted with Starlink terminals.

They cost many times less than comparable Western loitering munition; their greatest advantage, however, lies above all in how easily they can be adapted. Whether aerodynamics, shape, weight or weight distribution – if something new is to be tried at short notice and modifications or add-ons are needed, the design never reaches its limits. The West has no counterpart.

For the Ukrainian armed forces, this is a serious problem. “Fitted” in this case means that the Russians simply attach the terminal to the airframe with adhesive tape. Apparently this works so well that Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov, a Ukrainian electronic warfare specialist, has repeatedly warned that no means of jamming Starlink has yet been found. Electronic countermeasures remain ineffective, and electronic reconnaissance cannot determine where the drones are in flight either.

Starlink drones: how an advantage turned into a disadvantage

The issue is at the top of the agenda for Ukraine’s new Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov. It was he who asked Elon Musk for help in 2022 after Russia had temporarily paralysed the Ukrainian military’s satellite communications. To the surprise of many, Starlink technology proved extremely robust at the time; Russia failed in its attempts to disrupt the cheap civilian technology.

This advantage has now turned into its opposite, however. Russia can evidently obtain Starlink terminals and the corresponding contracts in any quantity. The result: several times a day, Starlink-connected Molniya drones strike Ukrainian targets, some of them deep behind the front line. Including the terminal and all components, the drones still cost less than a single artillery shell – and they hit targets more than 50 kilometres from their launch site.

The same technology is now also being installed in Shahed drones, which can thus reach targets throughout Ukraine with precise guidance. In a statement on 29 January, Fedorov held out the prospect of solutions. According to him, his team is in contact with SpaceX; he thanked SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell and Elon Musk personally for responding quickly and starting work on a solution. Beskrestnov speaks of hundreds of cases in which SpaceX Starlink terminals were used in attacks with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV).

The war in Ukraine demonstrates dramatically how far everyday civilian technology can be misused for military purposes – and is being misused – as soon as operational advantages arise from it. Considerations of how civilian technology could be made more resistant to military misuse, however, have so far not even reached their infancy.

At the same time, it is becoming clear that solutions based on COTS technology can achieve comparable and sometimes even better results in a very short time than highly complex end-to-end systems from the Western defence industry – systems that entail enormous costs and delivery times of several years.