During the operation of the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU), which failed in 2022, Ukrainian drone boats, each carrying 100 kg of explosives, were supposed to penetrate the port of Sevastopol and blow up russian warships. The operation was never carried out due to the sudden disappearance of Starlink satellite communication.
This was reported by journalist Simon Shuster in The Atlantic.
The plan involved the use of a group of drones, each equipped with more than 100 kilograms of C-4 explosives. The drones were supposed to enter the port of Sevastopol, where the russian Black Sea Fleet was based, and were controlled remotely via Starlink terminals.
How sea drones were delivered to the Crimean coast
The operation was prepared in coordination with the American military. The leader was SSU General Ivan Lukashevych, who organized a test of Starlink near the Crimean coast. To do this, two undercover officers boarded a commercial vessel sailing from Constanta past the Crimean coast to the port of Poti in Georgia. According to Lukashevych, the communication worked without failures during the test.
On the day of the launch, Lukashevych and several of his associates, including the then Minister of Digital Transformation and now Minister of Defense Mykhailo Fedorov, monitored the operation from the command post in Kyiv.
At what point did the operation fail due to the Starlink outage
The drones were at sea for about seven hours and approached the target by about 40 nautical miles. After the first boat circled the western part of Crimea, communication with it was interrupted. The next two drones lost their signal at the same point.
After the loss of communication, Fedorov contacted SpaceX, but did not receive a clear explanation of the reasons for the failure. The operation was canceled, and the drones were returned to shore.
Lukashevych said that that day Elon Musk "saved the russian fleet" and "decided to work a little for putin."
Recall that the management of SpaceX instructed its employees to "take off the gloves" and "use Starlink for everything that will help Ukraine."
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