Astro Hacker News - Ukraine Pivots to Israeli-Italian Satellite Tech to Bypass Starlink Restrictions

iammjm |next [-]

Satellite comms, anti-ballistic missiles, and long-range strike capabilities are some of the technologies that the US has been #1 at, and it could've stayed this way if they supported their European allies. But due to US trying to press Ukraine, and thus Europe, into submission, they pushed Europe to develop their own alternatives. The importance of all of this is massive. This is an absolutely crushing blow to the US ability to project both hard and soft power.

tim333 |root |parent |next [-]

The US still has a lot of tech but could do with more sane leadership.

thisislife2 |root |parent [-]

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iammjm |root |parent |next [-]

I don't think the relations with USA will be normalized anytime soon, at least not to what they were before Trump.

Trust is difficult to build and easy to destroy. Once it is destroyed, it is even more difficult to be rebuilt. Europeans will never forget the US irrationality, unpredictability, and the backstabbing. US threatened to invade Europe, to cut Europe from critical technology, and to sell it to Russia. That's not something that just gets forgotten quickly.

US and Europe will likely continue to be allies and to cooperate, but the relationship will be MUCH more equal and adversarial going forward.

thisislife2 |root |parent [-]

- Trust is difficult to build and easy to destroy.

Here you are assuming that the European politicians do not know what the US administration wants and is doing - they are just doing political theatrics for their public, while maintaining close ties with the US. The European superpowers (and the emerging powers) are very much part of this political idea of a stronger NATO as they agree with their Anglosphere partners (Five Eyes) that to challenge a united Russia and China in the future, a stronger military is very much required. Trump is an easy (and willing) target to blame for the "public breakdown" in relationship - note that nobody in Europe is politically disparaging the whole of the US for this, which would be much harder to politically repair.

illiac786 |root |parent [-]

I disagree. “American” has gained a very negative connotation in my circle of friends.

And there are more and more politicians openly anti-US (not just anti-Trump). Mostly opposition, smaller parties, yes. Big players are too afraid of what they have to lose, and while I can’t read their mind, I can’t imagine this shift hasn’t reached them too. They’re just hiding it out of fear.

Politicians may often be self-interested, but in general less so. And most importantly, they are emotional beings like the rest of the population. To think that their emotions are not impacted by two Trump mandates is naive.

You think politicians are machines, self-interested with zero loyalties or emotions in general, literally a different species from the rest of the population. I think that’s far too simplistic.

thisislife2 |root |parent [-]

I think successful politicians have the talent to shape public opinions. If you have any negative perception of the US today, it is because of your politicians. Tomorrow, these same politicians can make you feel good about the US too, if they so desire to.

illiac786 |root |parent [-]

Then successful politicians are exceedlingly rare.

Minds are shaped by algorithms and news, trust in politicians is very low.

mint5 |root |parent |previous [-]

To be clear, this is not 3d chess. The Trump admin and musk are not doing any of their antics out of a long term strategy. The longer term effects are all unintended consequences.

tim333 |root |parent |next [-]

Trump's anti NATO moves started after he was flown by the KGB to Moscow in 1987 https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/19/trump-fir...

after which he took out a full page ad and went on TV slagging NATO https://youtu.be/NSvdMiV33Ik

It may not be US's long term strategy but could be Russia's. A pawn in their 3d chess maybe?

thisislife2 |root |parent |previous [-]

There is no 3d chess here. In the US political system, the US President only has the power to shape foreign policy, and not to make or break it. True, Trump wields his powers crudely. But apart from his bombastic talks, have you seen any political action by him to suggest any major changes in US foreign policy? Not really, in my opinion.

iammjm |root |parent |next [-]

It did change drastically. Since the end of WW2 Russia has always been the #1 adversary for NATO, and now it looks like the US is siding with Russia for financial gain. Examples: US stopped supporting Ukraine financially, it delayed crucial ammunitions deliveries to Ukraine, it cut Ukraine off from Starlink, it sabotaged West's financial pressure on Russia. Also: it threatened to invade Greenland, it imposed absurd tariffs on Europe, it reduced the amount of troops and weaponry in Europe. It also showed it's incompetence and impotence in Iran, which weakened its projection of strength worldwide and thus also weakened NATO. This will take decades and a lot of effort to rebuild.

thisislife2 |root |parent [-]

Even with Russia, there is no real change in foreign policy - the NATO-Russia proxy war has outrun its course and it is better for Western interests that the war conclude now, before Russia gains more advantage. But of course, that also needs to be done without making any more major concession to Russia. That is why the US and Europe are currently playing the "good cop - bad cop" routine here with Russia, with the pretence that Trump has "abandoned" Europe / Ukraine in favour of Russia - if the Americans had really abandoned Ukraine, the Russia-Ukraine war would be over by now. Europe just doesn't have the military capabilities to support the war against Russia, like the US can. It is also beneficial to the Europeans that they aren't involved in the diplomatic talks with Russia (to end the conflict), as that provides US / NATO an excuse to not make any concessions in the European theatre (which is where Russia wants some actual changes). Keeping Europe away also provides the benefit that they can continue to maintain its cold war hostility with Russia, and demand further concessions from the Russians, to repair its relationship with them, post-war. Or worst case, to restart the war again in the future. (What is true is that Trump just doesn't like Zelensky because he supported Biden over him, and even campaigned against him, and still continues to undermine Trump. So he pettily undermines Zelensky at every opportunity - which plays well with the Russians too - knowing there is no political danger in it as any Ukrainian leader will be dependent on the West for the next decade or two.)

It is however true that just as the Ukraine war has provided US / Trump a leverage to demand concessions from the Russians, the Iran war too has provided leverage to Putin / Russia to demand concession from the Americans. This is another reason why the US is forced to engage with the Russians. Here, Trump would willingly sacrifice some Ukrainian / European (short-term) interests, if need be, to protect US interests without having to worry about any real domestic oppositions to it.

tim333 |root |parent |previous [-]

Backing a murderous dictatorship in its efforts to trample a peaceful democracy? It's a complete 180 from the traditional "leader of the free world" bit.

I daresay that's just Trump who's a Putin fanboy / employee. In the rest of the US I think like 3% support Russia.

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thisislife2 |next |previous [-]

Interesting - Iranians leaders were recently in Moscow, and so Israel's increased military support to Ukraine in this manner suggests that Iranians have perhaps managed to strike some military / security deal with Russia.

More info on the HiSky system being discussed - https://defpulse.news/en/what-is-known-about-hisky-satellite... ... apparently this system uses a mix of LEO and GEO satellites, unlike Starlink which exclusively uses LEO satellites (which provides better latency). Starlink also has 11,000+ LEO satellites in orbit which allows it to provide unprecedented coverage, which is currently unmatched by any of its competitors. This is also what provides it an advantage in its military use as it makes it extremely expensive to jam over a territory. For example, over Ukraine-Russia (where operationally allowed) a Starlink terminal is always in range of, and thus can connect to, around 20-60 Starlink satellites. This makes jamming it quite difficult and expensive. ( EW vs Starlink: What Actually Works? - https://militarnyi.com/en/blogs/ew-vs-starlink-what-actually... ). That will be the interesting thing to study here with any alternative networks used for military application - how resistant are they to jamming here?

Also, one of the reasons that the range of Starlink is limited to only over Ukraine (with some coverage spilling over the Russian borders) is because the Russians bluntly threatened to blow up Starlink satellites over Russia. Musk also now claims that Ukrainians "bypassed" this by using civilian Starlink transmitters (which are slower for military use) over Russia (which he now claims to have "disabled" permanently, and apparent why Ukranians are exploring alternatives). Depending on whether the Israelis and Italians have given explicit approval for the military use of their network, So Russia's political response should also be interesting. If politicalthreats fails, we may actually see the first use of anti-satellite weapons in a real war, shifting the theatre of military operations to Space. After the advent of drone wars, this may be another game changer in modern warfare.

pogue |root |parent [-]

This is probably also why Russia is working to build their own Starlink alternative, as reported in the media. [1] Any sane country right now should be looking at Musk, one of the owners of the largest global satellite based communication network and how he changes his mind on who he will and won't support on a whim, and be saying to themselves that they too need an independent satellite network, if not a regional one. Musk is not a person who can be trusted.

Hopefully, if we get a proper left leaning president in 2028 we can nationalize SpaceX and Starlink and wrest control of these critical pieces of infrastructure out of the hands of a man who has gone full fascist (absolutely no denying that at this point).

Russia races to build rival to Elon Musk’s Starlink https://www.ft.com/content/423ca208-8e22-4fb3-a76d-b9c722fd8...

No paywall: https://app.ft.com/content/423ca208-8e22-4fb3-a76d-b9c722fd8...

elcritch |root |parent [-]

Perhaps the more fascist behavior is to call for seizing control of a private enterprise because you don’t like the owners politics?

psd1 |root |parent [-]

No, nationalisation is not one of the hallmarks of fascism. Fascism, historically, favoured and co-opted private enterprises that had fascist-aligned leadership. E.g., Elon Musk in the white house.

There is an enormous range between total central control and total laissez-faire. Even America has a national postal service; that does not make it the USSR.

National strategy should not consider Elon's fee-fees

myth_drannon |next |previous [-]

I'm curious if the highly unusual visit by very high ranking Russian GRU delegation is related or it's more about the coming war with Iran.

"Sanctioned Russian jet carrying military intel. chief lands in Israel after departing Moscow base" https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-914291

tim333 |root |parent [-]

It sounds quite plausible that it's about the satellites. They are probably threatening various bad stuff towards Israel if it goes on.

mopsi |next |previous [-]

Russian war correspondents are saying that the attempts to micromanage the war through toggling Starlink on and off have massively backfired, because the new satellite terminals permit mid-course corrections, which have made Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries much more devastating: https://x.com/Tweet4AnnaNAFO/status/2120068909738967342

akazantsev |root |parent |next [-]

Important note: the USA has never permitted the use of Starlinks to strike inside Russia, and they were mostly not used to strike refineries. Starlinks were only used inside Ukrainian territory to hit Russian logistics. This is the first time satellite communications have been used to hit refineries inside Russia.

akazantsev |root |parent [-]

Some more context about Starlink coverage for the military in Ukraine:

I found an explanation, thanks to someone who knows their stuff.

Basically, Starlink coverage doesn't stop exactly at the administrative border with the Russian Federation; it can extend about 30 km into their territory.

But here’s the thing!

Starlink covers the entire Black Sea and Sea of Azov. And that 30 km buffer is measured starting from the actual coastline of the Russian Federation. This means that the entire 30 km coastal strip along the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov—which is sovereign Russian territory—is covered by Starlink.

Consequently, in theory, coastal cities like Taganrog, Rostov, Yeysk, Anapa, Novorossiysk, our "favorite" Gelendzhik, Tuapse, and Sochi all fall within the Starlink coverage zone.

aaron695 |root |parent |previous [-]

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lithos |next |previous [-]

Musk lost future billions from his Starlink Ukraine antics. Sure previously everyone knew it was suboptimal to use foreign communication tech, now it's not even worth debating that you shouldn't use starlink for anything near the military (including foreign aid, war/disaster reporting, and anything else that an insanely politically motivated person would see as "military action").

1718627440 |root |parent |next [-]

Is it even about the billions anymore or about raw power? I can imagine it must become boring to look at the ever growing numbers at some point, and you want to see real impactful increase in power.

tim333 |root |parent |previous [-]

I think it's more Starlink is effectively US govt controlled so only use it for things they approve of.

jurgenburgen |root |parent [-]

> I think it's more Starlink is effectively US govt controlled so only use it for things they approve of.

How can you know what that is beforehand? Better to just not have the dependency.

thisislife2 |root |parent [-]

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nsoam |previous [-]

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nkmnz |root |parent [-]

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41353aab |root |parent [-]

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