Kyiv officials warned that Ukrainians might be coerced into registering Starlink terminals for the Kremlin’s forces after a recent block on Russia’s access to the service.
Ukraine’s auxiliary body for handling prisoners of war posted a notice on Tuesday saying that it had learned of multiple instances where families of Ukrainian prisoners were threatened and told to enroll such terminals.
The warning comes after Ukraine’s defense ministry reached a deal with SpaceX earlier this month to cut off Russia’s access to Starlink by blocking general connectivity across Ukrainian territory.
“Looking for a way out of the difficult situation in which they found themselves, the occupiers turned their attention to the families of the prisoners,” the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War wrote in a statement.
“Cases of threats and demands to officially register Starlink terminals have been recorded,” it added.
To maintain Starlink access, Ukrainian troops, civilians, and businesses must register individual terminals to a “whitelist,” either online or at municipal centers.
The sweeping move aimed to curb a black-market loophole that Russian forces were exploiting. In compliance with US sanctions, SpaceX doesn’t do business with Russia, but Ukraine has repeatedly said that Russian troops were obtaining terminals and using them to guide attack and reconnaissance drones.
In its latest statement, the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said that officials could trace the registration of terminals that were later used by Russian forces because enrollment requires an ID.
“If the terminal is used to control drones that destroy infrastructure and take lives, the fact of registering the terminal by a citizen of Ukraine is grounds for criminal prosecution,” the agency added.
Russia is not known to have a satellite internet service that compares to Starlink’s in terms of speed, availability, and stability.
“For the enemy, Starlink is so important that they have deployed a whole network to search for traitors who are ready to register Starlink for themselves in the Central Administrative Service,” wrote Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov, a drone analyst and an advisor to Ukraine’s defense ministry, in a Telegram statement on Sunday.
In some cases, Russian troops were offering up to $230 to register a single terminal, Beskrestnov added. That’s roughly a third of the median monthly salary in Ukraine.
For the Kremlin’s forces, the service disruption has been significant enough that pro-Russian military bloggers have reported that most Russian units now lack internet access. Some have blamed Moscow for what they called a reliance on Western technology, even as the US and Europe explicitly back Ukraine.
“It’s about to suddenly become clear that units cannot operate effectively without communications. That’ll be news to some in high places,” one blogger, under the handle Belarusian Silovik, wrote.
Denying Russian access to Starlink had long been a priority for Ukraine’s new defense minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, who had previously advocated such measures while serving as minister for digital transformation.
