As the conflict in Ukraine continues to rage , Starlink satellites are proving to be an indispensable creature for a Ukrainian drone building block that ’s helping to impair the Russian advance .
Aerorozvidka is a unit of the Ukrainian Ground personnel particularise in aerial reconnaissance and drone warfare . Their primary weapons are quadcopter aerial drones armed with night vision and thermal cameras used to descry on enemy units and even shake off anti - tank bomb .
All of this workplace , they say , is only made potential thanks to Starlink allow the state of war - torn land with reliable Internet using a constellation of satellites in low - Earth compass . In the opening days of the Russian invasion , Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine Mykhailo Fedorov necessitate Elon Musk on Twitterwhether he could sendStarlink satellite Internet priming coat stations to their country . Musk obliged , and Starlink hascontinued to provideUkraine with dependable Internet since .
“ We habituate Starlink equipment and connect the monotone team with our heavy weapon squad , ” an policeman from the Aerorozvidka unit toldThe Times .
“ If we habituate a monotone with thermal visual sense at dark , the drone must connect through Starlink to the artillery guy and create prey learning . "
Some of the drones are plainly commercially available drones , but they also have a routine of heavy - duty modules that have been especially alter with gamey - tech military equipment , including a reconnaissance machine capable of hovering in the air for up to eight hours .
“ We chance upon at night , when Russians sleep , ” sum up the social unit ’s commandant , Lieutenant Colonel Yaroslav Honchar .
The unit started life as a club for drone and modelling plane enthusiasts , but following the Russian appropriation of Crimea in 2014 , it became an prescribed part of the Ukrainian army with its own band of soldiers , engineers , software designers , and drone cowcatcher . Although concisely disbanded in 2019 , the unit was reinstate in October 2021 amid mounting fears that Russia was planning some kind of offense into the country .
Aerorozvidka has already taken credit for some military success . As perthe Guardian , the building block claim to have aid defeat a Russian airborne flack on Hostomel airdrome near Kyiv in the first day of the encroachment by using drones to turn up and target hundred of Russian paratroopers hiding near the airfield . It has also put on a number of attacks on Russian convoys heading to the cap , fracture the progress into smaller elements .
“ We are like a hive of bees , ” Honchar told the Guardian . “ One bee is nothing , but if you are faced with a thousand , it can defeat a big force out . We are like bees , but we work at night . ”
