A crew commander in Ukraine’s 422nd Unmanned Systems Regiment, call sign “Dyryhent,” told Reuters that after a strike on one Russian jamming installation, Starlink-guided drones “flew without problems.” That one line sums up the fight over the satellite channel that now steers Ukraine’s deep-strike drones.
Those so-called mid-strike drones hit targets dozens of kilometres behind the line, from fuel depots and warehouses to air-defence nodes and command posts. They are flown in real time over SpaceX’s network, a link long considered nearly impossible to jam. Russia wants to break that dependence, and FACTUM, which reported on the effort as of 18 July 2026, says it is trying two ways: a ground jammer for now, and its own satellite constellation later.
The jammer
Ukrainian officials call the system the Volna Kupol Garant. Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov, an adviser to Ukraine’s defence ministry, told Reuters it is built by the Simferopol firm Rossiysky Kupol and costs roughly $1.5 million per complex. Reuters noted it could not verify Russia’s tactics, and all of these figures come from the Ukrainian side.
By his account, the rig is six trailers carrying twelve antennas. They broadcast interference at 14 to 14.5 GHz, the band Starlink uses for user uplinks, and hit several satellite channels at once. The spacecraft is not disabled. Instead, it has trouble hearing ground terminals inside the affected zone, which Beskrestnov puts at about 20 square kilometres. That dome of interference degrades any Starlink terminal inside it, whoever owns it.
Beskrestnov says the first Russian attempt came in 2024 on the Kharkiv axis. Ukrainian forces found that complex and destroyed it, and mass attempts did not begin until 2026, once Ukraine’s campaign against rear-area logistics picked up speed.
The jamming works locally. Rob Lee of the Foreign Policy Research Institute assesses that Russia is making gradual progress against Ukrainian drones. If it can scale up jammer production, he says, running the mid-strike campaign will get harder.
That “if” is the problem. A powerful emitter announces itself. Ukrainian specialists say electronic-reconnaissance assets pick such complexes up, and a bulky multi-trailer rig becomes a priority target once found. By Ukraine’s count, about ten have been identified and at least two destroyed, one in a joint operation with the SBU hours after detection.
A reversal in early 2026
Until late January 2026, Russian troops were using illegally imported Starlink terminals themselves, including on strike drones, to get around Ukrainian jamming of GPS and radio. After Kyiv appealed, SpaceX shut off the unauthorised Russian terminals. Beskrestnov called the result a “catastrophe” for Russian command and control.
Rassvet, the “Russian Starlink”
The second answer is Rassvet, a low-orbit constellation from Bureau 1440, part of IKS Holding. After experimental missions in 2023 and 2024, a Soyuz-2.1b rocket lifted the first 16 serial satellites from Plesetsk on 23 March 2026. The company soon lost one. A commercial launch is planned for 2027, and a target constellation of 292 satellites for 2030. Stable global coverage needs more than 250.
The scale gap is stark. RBC reported that Starlink had more than 9,800 working satellites at the end of February 2026, while roughly fifteen Rassvet craft are in orbit. The first batch also slipped from late 2025 for want of assembled craft, according to The Moscow Times, citing Kommersant. FACTUM points to Russia’s reliance on imported electronics under sanctions. Bloomberg reported in May 2026 that Russia sources up to 90 percent of sanctioned technologies through China.
Rassvet is built mainly as a civilian broadband system, with announced uses such as Wi-Fi on Sapsan and Lastochka trains and connectivity in the Arctic. FACTUM argues that does not rule out military use later, but no commercial service is running yet.
Ukraine has its own weak spot. Decisions about Starlink rest with a private company, and SpaceX restricted service on occasion in 2022 and 2023. Lee’s condition is not the only way the picture could shift: if SpaceX hardens the network with measures such as interference nulling and agile beam-steering, the expensive ground jammers would do less even if Russia built more of them.
