Billionaire Elon Musk ordered the shutdown of Starlink satellite internet over part of Kherson Oblast in the autumn of 2022 during a major counteroffensive operation by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Source: Reuters,

Soldiers panicked, drones surveilling Russian forces went dark, and long-range artillery units struggled to hit targets.

Soldiers on Ukraine’s front line suffered a communications blackout for more than two hours last night following a major outage on Elon Musk’s satellite internet service Starlink.

Elon Musk ordered a Starlink communications blackout over parts of Ukraine during a critical 2022 counteroffensive against Russia, leading to a military disaster and preventing soldiers from retaking territory held by Russia.

A rare global interruption in the Starlink satellite Internet network knocked subscribers offline for more than two hours on Thursday, the longest widespread outage since SpaceX opened the service to consumers nearly five years ago.

On September 30, 2022, the Ukrainian army was poised to score a massive military victory against Russia, but reportedly fearing a Russian nuclear retaliation, Elon Musk decided to determine

Tens of thousands of people across the globe have been impacted by the Starlink outage, which has prevented users in multiple countries from accessing the internet

Starlink faced a global outage on July 24. This disrupted Ukrainian military communication during the conflict with Russia. Elon Musk's Starlink is crucial for Ukraine after infrastructure damage. The outage impacted military and civilian sectors.

Ukraine will become the first European nation to offer Starlink mobile services when leading operator Kyivstar launches messaging by year-end and mobile satellite broadband in mid-2026, Chief Executive Oleksandr Komarov said.

Canada and the European Union are both reconsidering reliance on Starlink, with Ontario cancelling a $100 million deal over such concerns.