Russia has been mounting Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite systems on its attack drones to strike deeper into Ukraine, extending their potential flight range to well inside NATO territory, analysts and Ukrainian officials have said.

Ukraine has collected evidence of “hundreds” of attacks by Russian drones equipped with Starlink terminals, Serhii Beskrestnov, a military tech expert and adviser to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, said on Thursday.

“(Attacks) not on military targets, but on peaceful rear and frontline cities. Including residential buildings. In fact, this is terrorism using modern peaceful communication technologies,” he said.

Adding Starlink allows Moscow to bypass Ukraine’s electronic defenses that disable drones by jamming GPS and radio signals.

Russia has previously got around these signal blockers by using drones controlled by fiber optic cables. But while these cannot be disabled electronically, their range is limited by the length of the cable.

Starlink-equipped drones have a longer range than radio and cable-guided drones and cannot be jammed. The superfast connection also makes it possible to control them in real-time from inside Russia, allowing them to be much more precise.

CNN has asked Starlink for comment, but received no answer. Under US sanctions, Starlink cannot be sold or used in Russia.

While other Russian drones and missiles can cover longer distances, they are a lot more expensive, larger and easier to detect and take down. A simpler drone equipped with a Starlink Mini, which costs between $250 and $500, can be much cheaper and as effective as the more advanced models that cost tens of thousands of dollars.

Beskrestnov, better known in the drone tech circles under his moniker Flash, shared a photograph of a BM-35 drone strike in Dnipro, saying that the Starlink-equipped drone can fly a distance of up to 500 kilometers (310 miles).

He said it was also likely that the deadly strike on a civilian train in eastern Ukraine on Tuesday was conducted with a Shahed drone equipped with a mesh radio modem or possibly a Starlink, given it was able to get through electronic defenses and was guided by its pilot to strike the middle of a moving train.

Earlier this month, Flash told the Ukrainian Public Broadcaster Suspilne that a swarm of Starlink-equipped Molniya drones was recently used to hit Ukrainian energy facilities in the Chernihiv region. The Molniya drones are very simple and cheap machines made with plywood, capable of flying dozens of miles.

He said that one in every three of the drones managed to hit its target because of the Starlink technology. “It is impossible to suppress (them) with electronic warfare. It can only be physically shot down if an anti-aircraft drone sees it and shoots it down,” he said.

He said on Thursday that more Starlink-equipped Molniya drones were used overnight near Pavlohrad some 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the front lines.

Bypassing jammers

Ukraine’s recently appointed Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, who was previously in charge of drone development and procurement as the minister for science, tech and digital transformation, said that Ukraine needs to respond “very quickly” to the Starlink development.

“The enemy is constantly improving its drones and attack tactics to achieve its goals. Every day, a new risk emerges,” he said, adding that Russia launched over 6,000 drones in the past month alone. That is slightly more than in December and November, but more than twice the number recorded at the same time last year.

Fedorov said on Thursday that the ministry has contacted SpaceX, Musk’s company that owns Starlink, with proposals on how to stop Russia from using the technology.

He said he was grateful to “SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell and Elon Musk personally for their quick response and for starting to work on resolving the situation.

Ukraine has become heavily reliant on Starlink since the beginning the war. The system is used by the military to communicate and operate drones, by the government as well as many civilians, businesses and public institutions including hospitals and schools.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a US-based conflict monitor, said that based on the reported 500-kilometer range “most of Ukraine, all of Moldova, and parts of Poland, Romania, and Lithuania” are in range of the Starlink-equipped BM-35 drones if launched from Russia or occupied Ukraine.

Ukraine’s sanctions commissioner Vladyslav Vlasiuk said earlier this week that the growing use of Starlink by Russia shows that the sanctions pressure Ukraine’s allies put on Russia is “insufficient.”

CNN has previously reported on Russian troops bypassing the sanctions by buying Starlink systems in third countries and then using them along the frontlines. At that time, Starlink said that it would deactivate any terminal found to be used by a sanctioned or unauthorized party.

Musk himself did respond to criticism of his technology being used by Russia earlier this week when he was asked by Poland’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Rados?aw Sikorski on X why he doesn’t “stop the Russians from using Starlinks to target Ukrainian cities.”

Musk responded by calling Sikorski a “drooling imbecile” and saying Starlink was “the backbone of Ukraine military communications.” He did not address the question of Russia using the system.

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