site|engadget

SpaceX is sending more Starlink terminals to Ukraine, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky. “Talked to Elon Musk. I’m grateful to him for supporting Ukraine with words and deeds,” Zelensky tweeted on Saturday afternoon. “Next week we will receive another batch of Starlink systems for destroyed cities.”

SpaceX sent an initial shipment of its satellite dishes on February 26th following a Twitter plea from Ukraine’s vice prime minister, Mykhailo Fedorov. The delivery arrived on February 28th. Days later, Elon Musk warned Ukrainians to be careful when using the service on account of the fact that it’s the only non-Russian internet provider left in some of the more war-torn areas of the country. The warning came after John Scott-Railton, a researcher with the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, pointed out Russia has decades of experience triangulating and targeting satellite uplink transmissions with airstrikes.

Russia’s invasion has tested Ukraine’s internet infrastructure. Intense combat in cities like Kyiv and Mariupol has caused disruptions to GigaTrans, the country’s backbone internet provider. Over the past few days, internet monitoring organization NetBlocks observed multiple drops in connectivity. Among the most recent and potentially worrisome is the one affecting the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which left the International Atomic Energy Agency saying it could no longer get “reliable information” from the facility.