Moscow’s bid to sever Ukrainian forces’ internet access is more sophisticated than previously known, leaked documents show.
Russia has been trying to sabotage Ukrainian forces’ internet access by targeting the Starlink satellite operations set up by Elon Musk at the start of the invasion of Ukraine.
However, Russia’s targeting of the satellites appears to be more advanced than previously known, according to a classified U.S. intelligence report obtained by The Washington Post.
Moscow has been wrapped up for several months, attempting to fine-tune its Tobol electronic warfare systems to disrupt Starlink’s transmissions in Ukraine, the top-secret assessment, which has not been previously disclosed, contends.
The document, among a cache of sensitive materials, leaked online through the messaging platform Discord, dates to March and does not indicate whether any of Russia’s tests have been successful.
But the intelligence finding is interesting nonetheless as it appears to affirm what observers had only hypothesized previously: that a program supposedly designed to protect Russia’s satellites can be employed instead to attack those used by its adversaries.
SpaceX, the firm that owns Starlink, declined to comment. Last spring, Musk briefly addressed the Kremlin’s attempts to target the technology, writing on Twitter in May 2022. that while Starlink had demonstrated its resilience against such “jamming & hacking” attempts, the Russians appeared to be intensifying their efforts.
It all comes out in the wash
Needless to say, but these leaked documents are only a few of the hundreds of classified U.S. military documents that have sent the defense and intelligence establishment scrambling to repair the damage.
Added to this are two news stories posted this week that claim that the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation is saying they have developed an electronic warfare system capable of suppressing signals from spacecraft in geostationary orbit.
The second news story, posted by the EurAsian Times, basically claims the exact same thing. They claim their information came from a source cited by Ria Novosti. Without divulging any further details, the source added that at a shorter distance, the power of the emitter of the new system is capable of irreparable harm to the enemy’s electronics.
