>"Bulgarian Interior Minister Ivan Demerdzhiev told parliament that additional security measures had been introduced at similar facilities, even though responsibility for their protection rested with their owners."
It seems absurd that the government is blaming SpaceX for not securing its property against trespass and vandalism/arson, especially when it seems likely that the violations are by foreign-state-sponsored actors. If this sort of issue is not the responsibility of local police and federal agencies, I am not sure what is. I understand that railways in some countries have their own police, but it is my understanding that SpaceX has not been granted such powers in any country.
>If this sort of issue is not the responsibility of local police and federal agencies, I am not sure what is.
It's the Balkans mate. You pay next to no taxes, and so you also get next to no services back from the government.
The Police, education, healthcare, courts, etc. that exist, is just a skeleton crew in minimum load bearing role, not to actually solve your problem when you need it. For that you gotta pay private and costs extra.
Why would Balkan tax payers pay to secure foreign corporation? Especially if that corporation is involved in a war they don't care which makes it a legitimate military target.
>Why would Balkan tax payers pay to secure foreign corporation?
Because foreign corporations operating in the Balkans pay taxes in the balkans, own property/real estate on Balkan soil on which their business operates, and employ workers in the balkans.
Bulgaria is not a war party, Starlink is. Whatever taxes they pay, it doesn't cover special military protection or war involvement, just regular protection from theft, trespass and similar, like any other company not involved in war.
>Bulgaria is not a war party, Starlink is [...] it doesn't cover special military protection or war involvement
Huh? So by your logic, if Russian soldiers in fatigues are shooting up a Ukrainian Roshen candy shop in Sofia Bulgaria, it's no the job of the Bulgarian state to intervene and fire back at those Russian soldiers on Bulgarian soil or arrest them, because according to you it's just a war dispute between Russia and Ukraine that doesn't concern Bulgaria and it's government law enforcement?
In the end it'll be up to the courts to decide if the incident on Starlink is an act of war not covered by insurance and law enforcement, or vandalism that falls under the responsibility of the Bulgarian state law enforcement, but you're logic is pure comedic FUBAR.
> if Russian agents assassinated a local industrialist
Funny you mention that - Russia has tried at least once going back as far as 2024[1]. State security services intervened.
> US intelligence discovered earlier this year that the Russian government planned to assassinate the chief executive of a powerful German arms manufacturer that has been producing artillery shells and military vehicles for Ukraine, according to five US and western officials familiar with the episode.
> When the Americans learned of the effort, they informed Germany, whose security services were then able to protect Papperger and foil the plot. A high-level German government official confirmed that Berlin was warned about the plot by the US.
> Because foreign corporations operating in the Balkans pay taxes in the balkans
Ahaha, as if.
Foreign corporations with presence but no local entity pay no taxes. Foreign corporations with local entities somehow manage pay zero taxes because all profits are transferred to their Ireland parent entities.
Domestic corporations have far less options to not pay taxes, so they mostly do.
They should rather seize the property of a company trying to make a country involved in war and endangering its population by operating military actions from that country soil.
And by your own argument, Bulgaria would also be at war with Russia then, since Bulgaria has been supporting Ukraine with weapons and material in this war.
Because that foreign corporation presumedly purchased the local property, pays local taxes on it, and probably employs some local people. Or are you claiming that the property of anyone foreign anywhere is up for grabs because they're foreign?
The people who started the fire are not going to be FSB employees, they're useful idiots that got paid for some vandalism who won't even know who hired them. Plausible deniability.
This. Police are just the clean-up crew who come 20 minutes after, and fill in the paperwork proving that something bad did indeed happen to you, that you can then use for your lawsuit or insurance claim, nothing more.
Unless you're a politician or the billionaire owner of an island, they're not gonna do much more to actually prevent or solve your problem.
In this case they even might come in and check if you didn't take sufficient actions to prevent this bad event.
An individual will be informed how not having a lock on the door was a failure in individual responsibility to prevent harm against yourself/others.
But an operator of digital infrastructure might get audited for compliance of the critical infrastructure directive/act. In the EU fines for such violations can be as high as €10 million or 2% of global turnover.
>"you're responsible for securing your own property, security guards are a thing everywhere."
Maybe Bulgaria differs from most countries, but security guards seem to be mostly theatre. Private actors are generally very limited in what they can do to secure property, and they're usually required to basically call the police and hope the police show up in time to do something, which is often unlikely in either the countryside or industrial areas.
I think the point would be that it's the private company's responsibility to provide a minimum level of security, even if their job is just for deterrence, documentation, and notifying police in a timely manner. Even if it's mostly "theatre" it still serves a purpose.
Even more in this case: The business Starlink is operating is classified as critical infrastructure (in both EU and US)
As providers in the business of critical infrastructure they need to comply to the HIGHEST physical and digital security requirements, which includes taking preventive measures against acts of terrorism.
Not much is known about this case yet though, it's possible that their preventive procedures failed but their resilience procedures worked (was Starlink down?), and they reported the incident in compliance to EU CER and NIS2.
Either way, I'm sure they'll get an audit for EU CER compliance now, which will create a list of mandated immediate actions...
Is deployment of surface-to-air missiles, flak cannons, Gatling guns, and anti-air radars going to become a standard requirement? Unfortunately, Starlink can't go the easy route and just dig itself 100ft underground, they need satellite comms.
Aren't datacenters being targeted with missiles in this conflict? A single incident for a single Starlink datacenter might not have been the result of a missile, but it seems that full-on missile and drone attacks are now a very real part of the threat profile for datacenters.
As resentment towards datacenters grows in the US you might even see increasingly creative acts of vandalism and other attacks in places that are not considered war zones. A pipe bomb tossed it the vents of AC units ups the game of "basic physical security". And you don't have to get that crazy. A $100 drone can drop a bag of BBs.
Basic physical security is already way above basic at ordinary datacenters in seemingly safe locations.
In Europe, the airspace above a property is not owned by the company owning the land.
It's owned, monitored and guarded by the local government. Missiles aiming at a data center would first penetrate the national airspace of the country, as well as unlicensed drones do. This is a violation of national airspace and a crime against the country.
Drones are still a weak spot of national security though, as we keep seeing all around the world. But governments in Europe have no doubt that it is their responsibility to secure their airspace, and there are EU-wide activities to fix that.
> "Basic physical security is already way above basic at ordinary datacenters in seemingly safe locations."
From all that is known, this incident is about vetted access control and having a sufficient secure perimeter around your facilities.
In both US and Europe, a data center is considered a critical infrastructure and needs to adhere to the maximum physical and digital security requirements, which is much more substantial than this.
In this case, again, two people apparently penetrated security and put equipment on fire.
This might as well be the warehouse of a supermarket. It's a gap in their security that this happened, not a lapse of the government.
The responsibility to do their best to protect is still with the owner, it doesn't mean they must succeed at any cost. They must only do their best. Did they do their best?
I read the statement as the government introduced additional security measures "even though responsibility for their protection rested with their owners". These measures weren't "surface-to-air missiles, flak cannons, Gatling guns, and anti-air radars". Clearly more could have been done before digging into the bag of silly options. The owners just didn't do it.
There's a fine line between hyperbola to make a point, and hyperbola as a silly attempt to blur the issue. You comment is on the wrong side.
It really depends on the site being secured and who's acting as a guard. Try to storm a major US airbase and you'll learn very quickly that not all guards are created equal. Do the same as your local strip mall and yeah... that guy is only there to break up fights between kids and call the cops.
In Bulgaria the security guards used to be just protection rackets. Then EU happened and the country normalized but even the previous prime minister used to be a bodyguard.
When those people aren’t around Bulgaria is incredibly peaceful country.
You install gates, raise walls, limit access, hire personnel, etc.
The more you need to secure whatever it is, the more layers you have.
In general, any respectable warehouse would have an external wall with a single entrance to the parking, and then a second entrance to the building itself.
Local here. The new prime minister is a spineless russian rag and everyone around him is from the former communist party. You won't find in them anything approaching self-respect or actual will desire to defend against any russian provocation.
> If this sort of issue is not the responsibility of local police and federal agencies,
... it means those properties are own sovereign nations, or at least autonomous zones! woo hoo, time to declare independence of People's Republic of Mars.
It is not absurd at all. You can't arrest somebody for a sabotage without letting him to execute the deed. Because if he won't execute there's nothing to arrest him for...
So to prevent a sabotage is to have several layers of security (i.e multiple fences) so you will force the saboteur to commit minor crimes like trespassing first and also slow the saboteur significantly so you can arrest him for these minor crimes.
How else would you like to discover a conspiracy if the saboteur is a tourist coming from abroad? Or of a saboteur is a child who got promised 1000eur for it?
> How else would you like to discover a conspiracy if the saboteur is a tourist coming from abroad?
Tips? Mistakes? Customs officers getting a funny feeling about something in their bags? Google searches? Purchases of stuff to make explosives with? Surveillance? The child tells their parents some creepy guy offered them a thousand Euros? Do you think intelligence agencies don't already look for this sort of thing?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Pastorius has a nice example of how this works that doesn't even rely on modern surveillance tech. They accomplished zero sabotage, and six were put to death for it.
> Even before the mission began, it was in danger of being compromised, as George Dasch, commander of the team, left confidential documents on a train, and one of the agents, while drunk, announced to patrons in a Paris tavern that he was a secret agent.
> Immediately upon reaching the beach, at around 30 minutes past midnight the saboteurs were discovered amidst the dunes by unarmed Coast Guard Seaman John C. Cullen, who was accosted by Dasch and offered a bribe of $300. (Cullen had been shortchanged, the money only amounted to $260.) Cullen feigned cooperation but reported the encounter.
> Additional breaches of secrecy occurred; Kerling had boasted to a colleague about their mission, and in Chicago, Herbert Haupt had asked his father to buy him a sports car claiming he needed it while traveling on business for the German government.
Any operation involving humans has opportunities for fuckups.
99% of saboteurs won't do string of such stupid mistakes. So it is a vanishing chance bordering on luck that intelligence will prevent anything and it will be possible to apply conspiracy charges.
> After the war, it was discovered that all the agents Germany sent to Britain had given themselves up or had been captured, with the possible exception of one who committed suicide.
Not a single successful agent in five years of war.
> It is not absurd at all. You can't arrest somebody for a sabotage without letting him to execute the deed. Because if he won't execute there's nothing to arrest him for...
You can very well arrest someone for the intention of sabotaging.
So you agree "taxpayers should be on the hook for everything"?
Every place SpaceX decides to operate, regardless of what taxpayers want, the taxpayers should foot the entire security bill for their private facilities?
So where’s the line drawn? How much should taxpayers be primarily responsible for if a private company doesn’t meet established security standards?
The comments in this thread you’ve joined seem to imply a private company should be held to no standards, and that this specific company’s security should primarily be the responsibility of other taxpayers.
Not that different, perhaps, from Russia making businesses responsible for defending their sites against drones. Even threatening to nationalize the businesses that fail to establish adequate defenses. How a business can get ahold of military-grade anti-air defense systems is left mostly unanswered.
Demerdzhiev, Radev and their entire cabinet in general just avoid blaming Russia for some “unknown” reason as a blanket policy. Yesterday, Russia bombed two Ukrainian ships super close to Bulgaria’s waters in the Black Sea, 11 civilians died, and the PM still says we can’t make any conclusions about the perpetrators when questioned in parliament today.
I’m trying to say that the logical conclusion is to shift the responsibility explicitly to SpaceX, since otherwise you have to admit the attacks are state sponsored and you have to name the perpetrator.
They just move the burden of proof and responsibility as needed. 4 ships carrying Ukraine cargo sunk by drones in Bulgarian waters, one of the ships Ukraine owned and the crew full of Ukrainians? No evidence whatsoever on who could have done it so we don’t blame anyone. Yes yes logic says it must be Russia but we need concrete evidence, so unfortunate.
Ukraine responds to Russian attacks? Why Ukraine doesn’t want peace! Why Ukraine doesn’t just capitulate? The coalition of war(he means countries who support Ukraine militarily) is causing so much suffering.
Ukraine started the attacks on commercial shipping in the Black Sea and Caspian. A 40 day offensive to bring Russia to the negotiation table that backfired when Russia started targeting Ukranian ships and Odessa.
Ukraine innovates and Russia copies/addapts. Russia has ALWAYS been good at this game. Russia reminds me so much of the roman military in this sense, extremely good at copying and incorporating foreign military tactics/equipment.
Think of the initial long convoys ukraine destroyed, the bayraktars -- Russia addapted, the then the brilliant Eastern campaign where Ukraine managed to route the russians -- Russia adapted, that stopped working, then the indiscriminate massive artilery strikes Russia was doing -- ukraine started using better western artilery and himars, stopped the russians but the russians also addapted spread their logistics and so on; then the drones -- russia copied those even innovated with fiberoptic drones, then the Shaheds, ukraine adapted with fpv interceptors, then Russia started using jet powered interceptors, balistic missiles -- Ukraine initially stunned the world with Patriot interceptors but Russia kept firing until Ukraine ran out of interceptors, then the USV -- Ukraine had and still has great success with them, but look, Russia started using USVs also and Ukraine has no response to those.
It looks like the end will be decided by the country who just has more resources and willpower to continue.
I'm seriously scared for the next years -- the US is clearly turning hostile to Ukraine, Europe is turing far right with russian puppets everywhere.
"Those who haven't studied history are destined to repeat it". What you cited is factual and not new. Even in WW2, the Soviet army started on a bad footing against Germany. At the start of the many Finnish wars, it also looked like poor strategy would lead to the defeat of the Soviet army. Every time they adapted and ultimately achieved most of their military goals. Today too, after western proclamation of Ukrainian victory for the last 3+ years, it is clear that Ukraine is facing defeat and cannot win unless the European / NATO army join the war directly (which they cannot as it will trigger WW3).
>Today too, after western proclamation of Ukrainian victory for the last 3+ years, it is clear that Ukraine is facing defeat and cannot win
It was equally clear - also to me - that Ukraine is facing defeat in two or three days after the start of large scale invasion. And yet here we are, three years later.
They're doing great. Even if they surrendered today, they exceeded my initial expectations like 300 times already.
They've lost around 20% of their territory with no hope of getting it back because they don't have the required number (or armaments) to wage a proper counter offensive. They've lost around 1/4th of their armed force personnels and are now earning the ire of their citizens who are being forcefully conscripted to fight a war they don't want to fight. Huge number of their citizens have migrated to other countries. Their economy is totally devastated. They cannot re-build their country without the mercy, charity and exploitation of foreign powers. As the war drags on, they are getting to the point of no return from where they will not be able to recover from this destruction of population, territorial geopolitics, economy ...
Sure, those who hate the Russians can enjoy how much the war costs them and weakens them. But only racist Europeans have a vested interest in cheering Ukraine's leader to keep fighting an unwinnable war, while they cleverly stay out of it, because they don't care about Ukraine too - Slavs fighting Slavs is good politics for them.
In WWII, it took the USSR 14 months to fight against Germany all through Ukraine, for about 1.4 million killed. The current Russian war against Ukraine is in its 56th month, losses are ~0.6 million killed and Russia holds about 19% of Ukraine, having gained 0.3% over the past year with ~140k killed.
The numbers speak for themselves on who's winning and who's losing the war.
> ... having gained 0.3% over the past year with ~140k killed.
Don't forget, against a NATO trained, NATO armed, NATO supported and NATO financed army.
Also, if one assumes that capturing territory is their only military goal, that does sound bad. It isn't though, right? With Ukraine, their major goal is to ensure that it remains a neutral state whose army and territory can't be used to economically or militarily threaten Russia ever. And their military goals have focused on this task - dismembering the country (which, as you pointed, they have done so by capturing around 20% of its territory, with maybe another 5% still to be occupied?), destroying their economic infrastructure (the captured territory had an impact on Ukraine's GDP loss, 75-80% of Ukraine's energy infrastructure has already been decimated, and their only port was targeted this year - if the war continues, Russia plans to capture Odessa too and convert Ukraine into a land-locked country), destroying Ukraine's military infrastructure (Russia has destroyed most of Ukraine's local missile and drone manufacturing units this year), and by destroying Ukraine's army through attritional warfare (nearly a quarter of Ukraine's army has been killed or injured - sure, way less than that of Russia, but unlike Russia Ukraine can't afford to lose its people).
(In other words, Russia is in no hurry to capture the remaining 4-5% of territory it seeks, because Ukraine will not stop fighting even after that is captured, and dragging the war helps Russia ensure that it can meet its other military goals too).
But ofcourse, why should Europeans care if Ukraine is being destroyed, as long as they kill as many Russians as possible?
> Don't forget, against a NATO trained, NATO armed, NATO supported and NATO financed army.
Nope. The credit goes mostly to Ukrainian drone manufacturers and drone crews, who cause about 80% of all battlefield deaths. NATO countries have no comparable expertise nor gear.
> Russia has destroyed most of Ukraine's local missile and drone manufacturing units this year
The rest must be doing overtime then, because the monthly Russian casualties in September were the highest of 2026, climbing from 32k in January to 46k in September.
> With Ukraine, their major goal is to ensure that it remains a neutral state whose army and territory can't be used to economically or militarily threaten Russia ever.
The only place where I see such narratives besides the dead comments on HN is Russian state TV. Elsewhere, even among the Russian domestic experts, taking these propaganda narratives seriously is a quick way to discredit oneself.
I think more precise language is important here. It is my perception that a small faction that currently controls the federal US government is hostile to Ukraine. A large majority of the general population of the US seems to support Ukraine.
You might argue that this distinction doesn't change the reality for Ukraine's prospects, but I disagree. The small anti-Ukraine faction in the US is becoming increasingly unpopular within the US. It is doubtful its dominance of the US executive branch will survive the next general election in two years. Its total control of the US government may not survive another month.
The willpower of Ukraine has been underestimated throughout this conflict. It seems a cinch it will hold strong for three more weeks. Then the US campaign for President begins in earnest and it would not be surprising for many US politicians to press against the anti-Ukraine faction in a bid for control of the US Presidency. The US Congress may try to remove itself from under the thumb of the current president and you might see sweeping changes in as little as three months. Or you might not.
Take courage. I think Ukraine's resolution to survive will outlast the influence of Putin fans who happen to have an outsized influence in US politics at the moment.
> large majority of the general population of the US seems to support Ukraine
“61% of Americans sympathize more with Ukraine, compared to only 3% who sympathize more with Russia; 22% who take neither side” [1]. (45% of MAGA supporters, 63% of GOP.)
Well, yes, the deal was supposed un-block its own food and fertilizer exports, but they were still sanctioned. It was idiotic to agree to that deal without first getting the sanctions removed. The UN "committed to help facilitate and remove obstacles to unimpeded global exports of Russian food and fertilizers" - something which never materialized.
Completely irrelevant as well as ridiculous. Russia is 100% responsible for any ships being sunk in the Black Sea. Making silly demands when things don’t work out the way they hoped does not shift the blame in any way whatsoever.
Russia can stop the war (and thus sanctions) whenever they choose to. Ukraine does not have that option.
How is it "irrelevant" when there was a deal struck but its terms were violated ? Are all Western deals this way ? No wonder Minsk broke down. How is Russia 100% responsible for any ships being sunk in the Black Sea when Ukraine has sunk >100 vessels in the black sea? Try and separate basic logic from partisan emotion please.
First, this thread is about refuting GPs claim about how this is in response to Ukraine attacking Russian vessels first, which is obviously bullshit.
Second, EU and US were not signatories to any deal between Russia and Ukraine, so any sanction relief was never on the table as part of the grain deal. Russia may have asked for it, but it was not offered or implied in any way by anybody. And yes, this is typically how deals work everywhere.
Third, any ship that Ukraine sinks is 100% on Russia because they’re the reason any ships need to be sunk in the first place. Again, Russia could stop the war today and no further violence would be necessary.
> They just move the burden of proof and responsibility as needed. 4 ships carrying Ukraine cargo sunk by drones in Bulgarian waters, one of the ships Ukraine owned and the crew full of Ukrainians? No evidence whatsoever on who could have done it so we don’t blame anyone
Well, the official stance of the EU a couple of years ago, when the Nordstream pipeline was attacked, was that it was Russia (even though it was against its interests). So we can have something similar here, right? That it was Ukraine that sunk those vessels. I understand the Bulgarian PM, he's just trying to be a standard EU politician.
> It seems absurd that the government is blaming SpaceX for not securing its property against trespass and vandalism/arson, especially when it seems likely that the violations are by foreign-state-sponsored actors.
SpaceX is actively meddling in foreign-state wars picking whichever side they choose to support on which day. They made their bed.
The relevant framework is US federal defence procurement law, particularly the FAR and DFARS. Starshield is a military system that Musk says is under US government operational control. Much like other defence systems supplied by private contractors, the supplier doesn’t necessarily retain authority over military deployment or usage. The distinction is that no law forced these specific restrictions; the law and contracts provide the framework for the US government to make those decisions.
and yes its ai slop, its about as much effort as you put into asking this question so we are even.
In the most corrupt administration of all time, American law doesnt really get considered at these levels. There are many things Musk and his companies should legally not be doing but not much really happening there. Especially after DOGE killed most the groups looking into these things and the AG is run by Trumps personal attorneys.
> SpaceX is actively meddling in foreign-state wars
Starlink is banned, by the US government, from operating in a military context, and cannot be used for military purposes. Do you have a reference/examples for them meddling/supporting wars, or a hint at what you're referring to for someone out of the loop? This is not allowed by very many laws and policies that have been in place since the company started operating.
I suspect you're making a logical leap that them stopping means they're now supporting some opposition?
"Motives" section being the important bits, for why it had to go to the government StarShield system.
Maybe this is the recent disruption referenced?
> On 14 October 2026, Musk said the Ukrainian military was using the US government owned and controlled Starshield system, not Starlink, and the recent change to restrict operational user terminals to those travelling at less than 100 mph (160 km/h) was a US government decision and not his decision.[87]
I don't know why it should be the governments job to secure private properties of corporations against vandalism/arson. It sounds much more absurd to me.
Starlink providing services to a customer (which made them a target in this case) is not a matter the local government of that site needs to protect them against.
--> Is it a local governments' job to secure the local properties of e.g. Lockheed, or the job of Lockheed as a for-profit supplier to the military?
--
Edit, as I expected this to be much more widely known: If you are operating in the business of critical infrastructure (for which Starlink qualifies, explicitly "digital infrastructure"), you have obligations to protect your facilities against physical and cyber attacks and have resilience and business continuity processes in place.
If you decide to operate in a business segment for critical infrastructure, it is not the governments job to secure your business, YOU have to comply to the requirements of operating in this field, and the government can audit and shut down your business if you're not in compliance.
In the EU, where this incident took place, this is well-defined under the CER-directive, and further extended for IT under NIS2 and CRE.
In the US, it's covered by CISA and CIRCIA (Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act)
Both need to act in compliance with local laws and mandates, it's not the job of the government to fill the gaps.
Corporations have more duties of different scale than individuals.
Starlink is a provider of Digital Infrastructure, and is already classified as "Essential Entity" under the EU CER-directive.
As such, it needs to comply with so-called "Physical-Cyber Convergence Requirements", which entails
1. Perimeter and Access Defense
2. All-Hazards Mitigation: Designing infrastructure to resist natural disasters, severe climate changes, or physical sabotage/terrorism.
3. Vetted Personnel: Utilizing mandatory background checks and security clearances for operators working in sensitive zones
Not much is known about this incident at this stage, and I'm sure the government will conduct own investigations. But regardless of the outcome, it will be the duty of Starlink to secure its facilities.
>I don't know why it should be the governments job to secure private properties of corporations against vandalism/arson.
because this isn't 'vandalism', this is an act of war by a foreign adversary that is now happening on European and NATO soil on a daily basis, and instead of responding accordingly we talk about this as if a drunk kid laid a fire somewhere
> "because this isn't 'vandalism', this is an act of war by a foreign adversary that is now happening on European and NATO soil on a daily basis"
Agree, the government should step in and (finally!!) take actions against those foreign adversaries.
But this doesn't change the fact that it is not the governments role to protect the facilities of a infrastructure provider against sabotage (or even acts of terror), a company providing such services in the EU has to comply to the CER directive and secure its operations.
There is a very basic reason for that: I could undercut every provider on the market by not investing in security and resilience. while everything works well I will beat all my established competitors and gain a significant share of the market.
This creates a risk of critical infrastructure stability for the citizens of that country. So if inevitable issues in resilience arise.....I demand the government to step in and take over my operations...?
Because internet is a major resource for the population. Its like water or electricity.
Most of those could be easily targeted and taken out by a large organized group but people are generally good and dont do that. If a country's military attacked though you wouldn't blame the water company for someone cutting the locks and destroying the water pumps. Or blowing up an electric facility.
Its not like this is just some random companies headquarters where they have some vehicles and someone broke the gates to spray paint the trucks.
This is an attack on the people of the country as a whole. The attackers are not vandalizing the internet because they dislike starlink they are attacking its people by destroying infrastructure. there is a major difference between the two.
> "Because internet is a major resource for the population. Its like water or electricity."
Yep, the EU classifies this as "critical infrastructure". Operators of such services (including water, electricity and digital infrastructure) have to comply to the highest level of the EU CER-directive for Physical and Cyber Security. This includes physical shielding, strict access controls and resilience against physical sabotage/terrorism as well as natural disasters or severe climate changes
I agree that the government should step up on against the military adversary on a country/regional level, but even then it is not their job to step in and do the job of Starlink as a provider of critical digital infrastructure.
A player in these markets has an obligation to secure his own facilities, otherwise every new market-entrant can undercut all competitors by not investing in security at all, until it's big enough to become a national risk and the government steps in to secure its business.
It's the government's job to protect both individuals and corporations against foreign attack. It's even the government's job to protect against crime.
This is not how this works, corporations are not people.
As a provider for digital infrastructure, Starlink is required to comply with the EU Critical Entities Resilience (CER) Directive, which mandates strict physical and digital security as well as business continuity in case of crisis.
The nature of this incident indicates a security issue on the site of Starlink, which is their duty, not the governments.
They may have not been in compliance with this directive, which puts local infrastructure and citizens and risk.
> "It's even the government's job to protect against crime"
It's the government's job to protect against crime, but the duty of an individual to take proactive measures against becoming a victim of crime ("Individual Responsibility").
--> They won't put a policeman in front of my house just because I decided to not have a door on my house.
-
Equally, (and MUCH more explicitly), it's the legal duty of corporations to protect themsselves against crime, especially if they provide critical infrastructure.
--> They won't put police all over my facilities just because I didn't invest in access-control.
--> In this case, I am not in compliance with the law and considered to invite(!) crime
It's both/and, not either/or. Yes, I have individual responsibility to have a door on my house, and to be careful about walking in sketchy places. And the government has a responsibility to combat crime. Both.
A critical infrastructure company has an obligation to keep their facilities secure. And the government has a responsibility to prevent attacks by foreign actors on critical infrastructure.
> "And the government has a responsibility to prevent attacks by foreign actors on critical infrastructure."
I replied explicitly to "crime", not "foreign actors", let's not conflate those just for a straw-man argument.
Preventing attacks by foreign actors is part of National intelligence and military, this is an entirely different matter. Both are entities facing outwards of a country, not inwards.
But more importantly, their job is not to fulfill the required security duties of a critical infrastructure company to prevent physical/digital attacks against the operation and resilience of its infrastructure.
And even IF they protect such a company in case of an imminent external threat, this is not a replacement for the legally required security compliance.
The critical infrastructure act (US) and directive (EU) mandate strategic measures to take explicitly against terrorist attacks, even natural disasters.
The government won't come to your company and do this job FOR you, they will lock you up and, in the EU, charge you up to xx% of your global annual revenue if they find out you're not doing it.
Depends on the infra, and the level of anxiety generally and specifically.
Petty vandalism no, but I’ve worked at a few and know more completely non-military business premises that absolutely have “military barricade” or the like quietly in their contingency plans.
Funny thing is, a bit of arson is kind of normal on their estates. But usually it’s just stolen cars.
The EU already classifies digital services like those provided by Starlink as "critical infrastructure".
Operators of such services have to comply to the highest level of the EU CER-directive for Physical and Cyber Security. This includes physical shielding, strict access controls and resilience against physical sabotage/terrorism as well as natural disasters or severe climate changes. This is the duty of every player in this business.
The government has a job to stand up against a potential adversary of the country (be it other countries or local terrorists), and in case of an attack on critical infrastructure the government will also step in to protect it, I agree on that.
But it doesn't have the job to take over Starlink's (or whoever's) business operations and make it secure. That is the job of the company, long before it even appears on any map of a potential adversary...
It's absolutely the role of the security agencies to protect against foreign attack. Are Oil tankers and Cargo ships supposed to have air defense? What about the World Trade Centers? Otherwise there is no purpose to having a military if you won't defend your sovereignty.
That doesn't absolve the orgs responsibility, but the questions should be directed at both.
I'm certain there will be investigations from the government, not only due to the suspicion of a foreign state attack but also on the grounds of Starlink not sufficiently securing their premises.
It's not the responsibility of security agencies to prevent two guys from entering the premises of a critical infrastructure provider with gasoline.
They may have prior intelligence to act on this, but it is the operator of that facility who has the responsibility to ensure a certain level of security and resilience of his own premises, and this is strictly defined.
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> "Are Oil tankers and Cargo ships supposed to have air defense?"
No, this would turn a civilian into a combatant ship, causing it to lose the civilian protections of the UN (The Ocean is governed by conventions of the United Nations, it's a different jurisdiction)
And still, oil tankers and cargo ships have requirements to secure themselves against piracy, terrorism and even warfare, mandated by the international maritime organization.
> "It seems absurd that the government is blaming SpaceX for not securing its property against trespass and vandalism/arson, especially when it seems likely that the violations are by foreign-state-sponsored actors"
I think neither private companies nor tax-payers would appreciate if the POLICE would run security for a for-profit corporation, as it means that all corporate access-permissions would de-facto be managed by the government administration (which would be financed by the taxes of citizens and other corporations...)
Also: Would be even more ironic for Starlink to now demand big-BIG-government after their CEO keeps pushing for small-government for years now. But it fits the typical "Privatize profits, socialize costs" view...
If I open something like a stadium, and whenever there's a big game I need a load of security to deal with traffic, drunk fans, and fights - arguably most of the security should be paid for from ticket sales, rather than the taxpayer, although the taxpayer should be there as the final backstop.
Likewise, if I have a bank with a vault full of valuables and I think it needs 3 armed guards present 24/7 - probably that's going to be at my expense, not that of the taxpayer. Although any bank should get a police presence in a reasonably timely manner, once they raise the alarm about a robbery.
I am getting a bit concerned that Russia is actually planning an attack on Eastern Europe.
It’s just like red storm rising, their refineries have been blown up and their diesel will only last 6 months. They need to move now or they’ll have to accept peace and economic prosperity.
At least one betting market has the odds at around 25% [1] of a direct military conflict with a NATO country by year's end. It will be interesting to see how things change after November's midterm elections. For what it's worth, Metaculus forecasters show a spike of likelihood at the end of September, 2027, with about 20% of forecasters saying that's when a military clash will happen. I'm not sure what's driving that spike in the forecast.
And there are people losing the same amount. I don’t get why people would use these markets as rigged as they are, other than using them to steer outcomes. (Bet 1b that Poland will attack Russia and that gives an incentive for someone to take that bet and stop it happening. Or vice versa.)
But isn't it somewhat realistic ? Once the Democrats take power in the House, they will ramp up the supply of US military aid and possibly force Trump to impose a so-called "no-fly" zone in Ukraine. There are war-hawks on both sides to push for this and they did push for this several times before. That will mean NATO & USAF involvement to enforce air superiority and bombing of Russian missile/drone sites and hence direct military clashes with Russia. It will likely snowball from there.
Attacking a NATO country would mean total war for Russia. Currently there are no signs that Russia is ready for total war, or willing to have one. Russia has been fighting a war of attrition in Ukraine for 4 years, without a moving frontline, exactly because it wants to win by slow attrition.
Total war (all money going to the war, millions of mobilized workers, etc.) would result in an economic collapse, which Russia is trying to avoid. Aside from "inconveniences" like Yandex AI not working after a data center hit, Russia's everyday life is largely unaffected by the war (at least compared to Ukraine's) - exactly because it is avoiding total war.
If Russia were desperate enough to finally go all in and have full mobilization (millions of conscripts, all industry working around the clock building nothing but drones and missiles, etc.), why would it start by attacking random EU countries instead of Ukraine itself? So I think it's very unlikely that anything is going to happen to Europe other than sabotage here and there. Remember that Putin is a KGB agent, and they're more about targeted tactical operations than strategic chess play.
The whole "special military operation" thing was itself just a way to quickly coerce Zelensky into signing an agreement by threatening force, without total war, but it fell apart, so they had to go this war-of-attrition route
this goes both ways; they'd be gambling that NATO doesn't launch things into Russia. From the accounts I've seen they did strip down the rest of the border forts to supply Ukraine.
Also, most of NATO's existing resources are currently not doing much but standing around. You can question how useful NATO's 'pre-drone' material is, and how much hasn't already been sent to Ukraine, but it's not nothing.
>they'd be gambling that NATO doesn't launch things into Russia
The official discourse in Russia is that NATO is already helping Ukraine launch things into Russia. So there's no gamble; for them, it's already a fact. Except, currently, it's just a proxy war where Ukraine has to jump through hoops to get military aid and targets approved, and it can only fire from Ukraine's territory. With a direct confrontation, there's no doubt that far more would be launched into Russia.
How would a direct war with NATO on several fronts help Russia win in Ukraine? Russia isn't ready for it in the slightest. As I said, if they wanted to go all in (full mobilization instead of partial, martial law, converting all industry to military production, etc.), it would be more logical to focus first on that 1 country they want to defeat, rather than immediately triggering Article 5 and fighting 32 countries at once. It just doesn't make any sense, and judging by the Kremlin's decisions over the last 4 years, I don't think they're that stupid.
> Attacking a NATO country would mean total war for Russia.
Is that so? I wouldn't trust the USA to commit to its NATO responsibilities anymore. The rest of NATO, torn as it is, could just as well find all kinds of reasons why this particular attack isn't a "real" attack, just to avoid the confrontation.
I wouldn't bet on that scenario happening, but as Russia, I wouldn't dismiss it outright either.
Europe has 4 times the population of Russia. The only successful attacks in the past 20 years have been against politically divided countries, like Syria, Venezuela and Ukraine (civil war since 2014). Iran is united, and so is Europe.
Lavrov has indicated he knows Russia would lose a conventional war against Europe by saying that an attack by Europe would start a quick (i.e. nuclear) war.
I agree that the US would stay out, especially if it is nuclear.
Lavrov says all kinds of things. Whatever he utters serves a purpose and has no logical relation to truth.
Don’t underestimate the capability of the EU to gridlock itself with decision paralysis. If we were decisive actors, we would have long stopped tolerating the hybrid attacks Russia is deploying against us today. Europe is anything but united now! We’re still purchasing oil from Russia. We can’t even agree on acting against the shadow fleet, or sanctioning all oligarchs, or applying second order sanctions.
A drone loaded with explosives targeting a German airport? We were merely lucky that it had a technical defect, or it may have been a disaster of epic proportions. Do you recall what the reaction to that was? I thought so.
Until we manage to gain some kind of unified agency, you better hope Russia cannot handle the logistics yet.
Multiple European governments are about to flip right. I’m not convinced a La Pen administration would send French troops to protect the Baltics or even Poland.
> why would it start by attacking random EU countries instead of Ukraine itself?
Because if russian troops appear in EU countries, EU might be more willing to accept Ukraine losing larger territories in peace deals. That's why EU has to - once attacked - hit russia so strongly, that they will retreat on our conditions.
No, there won't be an open attack, at least not yet. There will be more of those "hybrid" incursions. Russians will be gradually increasing the intensity of those operations, so that it becomes the new normal. There will never be a clear "well now they are attacking" boundary to point to.
Meanwhile, the EU is still buying fossil fuels from Russia, thus paying for all this. It boggles the mind.
Technically the EU is buying from India which buys from Russia. Alas prices are still high in India, since the benefit is mainly going to a few billionaires. Our billionaires are even more richer than Chinese ones while our people are poorer.
Mobilization turned out to be extremely unpopular, so they can't just do that without some exceptional cause.
That cause would be NATO attacking Russia. So they're engaging heavily in hybrid warfare, doing stuff like that in Europe. They're tying to provoke some small retaliation from NATO countries.
If that happens, they'll declare that the barbarians are at the gate, and they need a huge mobilization of troops.
But they have no interest in actually fighting against NATO. It would end disastrously for Russia, any way you slice it. Kaliningrad would be completely cut off and surrounded, their Arctic and Baltic sea routes would be hostile.
As a bonus, a potential real war with Russia would increase far-right isolationist popularity in Europe.
Personally I think this is all a play to mobilize a ton of soldiers, send them to Ukraine, and expand their occupied areas before a peace deal comes to the table.
I follow most of what you're saying, but not so much the increase in the popularity of far-right ideology. Surely Russia explicitly positioning themselves as a common enemy of Europe (rather than the current cold war status) would galvanise Europe? Most of the far-right personalities across Europe are very soft on Russia, to say the least.
As it happens, pretty much all far right nationalist parties are friendly with Russia. It would take a huge effort to change that discourse, or to build a new far right party from scratch - and now even without russian botnet support.
Yes it’s complicated. Nationalists aren’t necessarily right or far right. Until a few decades ago, the left were anti-migration and anti-globalisation due to the downward pressure on wages and working conditions. In this current political zeitgeist, the left have abandoned the working class and the right is happy to take their votes.
In a war with Russia, I imagine parties aligned with European strength would fare better. Parties which have previously suggested using kid gloves with Russia will fare worse. I think this implies that some right and left wing parties will not do well.
Lavrov had said it would be a short war if Europe attacks, suggesting they will use nuclear weapons immediately. Russia knows it cannot win a conventional war with Europe.
They don't need a war with Europe for conscription, just to declare war on Ukraine instead of a Special Military Operation. There is pressure on Putin to do this to finish the war quickly, but he is resisting.
Russia is only winning in Ukraine because Ukraine has been in a civil war since 2014. They can take oblasts in the East of Ukraine but have no hope of taking Western Ukraine. Attacking a united Europe is unfeasible. I suspect the war drums in Europe are more to support unpopular leaders like Macron and Mertz.
Russia is exporting less than a day's worth of diesel per month. They don't have a surplus, they're trying to get US to stop Ukrainian attacks on their refineries, since they cannot do that on their own.
I am convinced that if a attack is to happen, it will be right after the midterms. The US will be paralyzed by invocation of the Insurrection Act (or similar coup-y acts) so, unable to react.
My even biggest concern is the US will support Russia in a hybrid war as they are currently doing in Ukraine, from disabling Starlink, convenient trade obligations/restrictions, to grounding F-35s.
While the article deals with the topic that is not funny at all, I am amused by people having somewhat ironic names:
> Plamen Tonchev, head of Bulgaria's State Agency for National Security (DANS) said he believed the fire at the Starlink facility was an act of sabotage.
"Plamen" means "Flame", when translated from most Slavic languages (incl. bulgarian) to English.
I know next to nothing about Bulgaria, other than where it is.
Is that sympathy expressed for the people or for the nation? I definitely have sympathy for Russian mothers, having their sons sent to war. And the emigrants that can barely return to meet their family. But I'd also be happy to fight those sons if they think Russia has claims to anything outside previously agreed borders.
Disclaimer: I am not Bulgarian; I know it only through an ex and her family. I learned some of the language but didn't get anywhere near fluency (it is easier than Russian though).
The Bulgarian national myth has an important chapter in the late 19c where Russia liberates their fellow Orthodox Slavs from the Ottoman yoke[0], paving the way for modern Bulgarian independence. This is a powerful historical memory for many Bulgarians, but is somewhat tempered by their experience of Soviet rule, and also by contemporary Russian territorial aggression. But in my experience you will still find a lot of older folks who instinctively sympathize with Russia for these historical reasons. I will defer to any actual Bulgarians here, though, who understand these matters much better than I ever will.
Who else is very concerned that corporations are becoming valid war targets lately? I get that when a corporation is assisting a war effort it a combatant (corporate personhood etc..) but I work for a corporation and I don't want to be a valid war target.
Are you saying that you think providing people with internet access should be classified as an act of war, or do you mean that you worry that other people might?
I don’t want to be mean, but this seems like an extremely naïve thing to say unless you’re being insincere.
Are you familiar with how warring nations treat each others infrastructure during wartime? Silicon Valley is a top-5 target, if not top-3 target, for strategic[1] destruction.
[1] strategic in the sense of causing damage without escalating to nuclear war.
I didn't realize that in addition to the 11,127 satellites in our orbit it also takes over 1,500 ground antenna in the US alone to run this network? It seems likely that there is much more ground infrastructure than space infrastructure to make Starlink work
There was some talk about having the satellites form a laser mesh but I don't think they've gone live with anything like that, so it almost always just comes back down at the nearest site.
The only source I have ever seen is the US SDA confirming they have seen a demonstration of Starlink’s ISL, in 2024.
Do you have any more detailed or up to date information? I’m not doubting that they built ISL capabilities, since ISL is often used for collision avoidance and small scale satcom - I’m doubting that it is being actively used to route internet traffic.
Yes, they had these plans from the get-go so launching the necessary hardware is not surprising. The question was whether anything like that went live
Once it does go live, anyone could see the lower ping between two users of this network. If they say it got enabled, that wouldn't be hard to independently verify
"Unlike older geostationary satellite systems that had coverage gaps and high latency over remote oceans, Starlink's low-earth orbit constellation covers the entire globe. Qatar Airways, United Airlines, Alaska Airlines, and airBaltic all offer uninterrupted Starlink on long-haul international routes."
"... as of March 31, 2026, our constellation already incorporated over 23,000 inter-satellite lasers that create a dynamic mesh network in space, enabling traffic to route through orbit rather than relying solely on terrestrial backhaul infrastructure."
I wasn't, I was asking if it was another bullshit exaggeration from Musk. I though the laser interlinks were fundamental, but I'd as easily be unsuprirsed if they were Starlink's equivalent of 'FSD autopilot'.
I'm generally pro-SpaceX and am impressed with the rate of Starlink's development, but given his long history of ...shall we say... 'over-promising' it seems prudent to check the detail.
Well, if they are just glorified repeaters, perhaps european union can hurry the fuck up and build their own network, because at the pace of events we are seeing in about 1 year from now, the USA and Russia will tell us how Ukraine and EU are responsible for starting the war and they need to learn a lesson.
Oh wait, we are already here as if few days ago. Never mind.
How else do you expect the satellites to connect to AWS or Google? It obviously has to come down at some point otherwise your packets wouldn’t be able to go anywhere…
I find it somewhat interesting Russia is likely sabotaging these stations while Musk is limiting StarLink capabilities to Ukraine in fighting Russia. Very Spy vs Spy. Pick a lane!
Lots of quotes from Ukrainians about what they are accusing SpaceX of, and even misleading titles "NO WARNING BEFORE STARLINK CUTS", but the actual meat of it is pretty hidden.
Starlink never allowed use for offensive drone attacks, Starshield is what they were using, and it is a product fully controlled by the USG.
Can you say with assurance, hopefully with evidence, which entity has degraded service as described?
> Starlink’s Acceptable Use Policy explicitly prohibits
Starlink's AUP is whatever Musk decides it is when he decides. He is petty, and there are robust examples of his pettiness as it relates to X and Starlink (I'm unaware if he's weaponized Tesla vehicle access in this regard, but welcome citations, if they exist).
"For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law."
Yes- if they were using it for drone attacks and the service stopped/slowed, that was not Starlink, because it never would have happened in the first place.
> I'm unaware if he's weaponized Tesla vehicle access in this regard, but welcome citations, if they exist
Before the Model 3 was announced, a curious user poked around his car's network, and found multiple references to it, which he leaked to a news site.
Tesla responded by remotely forcibly downgrading his vehicle's firmware to an older version with no references to the 3 (presumably so he couldn't make any further discoveries), blacklisting his vehicle from getting any firmware upgrades, and to make sure he didn't try to thwart that, disabling the ethernet interface.
This only says that dedicated satellites exist, which is obvious and public knowledge. What it doesn't comment on is whether starlink and starshield use any common ifra, which they almost certainly do. The number of starshield satellites is simply way, way, way too low to meet the claims that people are making about the system. It's a geometry problem.
Starshield uses all of Starlink's satellites and a few special ones specific to Starshield. There's been plenty of cases in Ukraine of suicide drones being configured to starlink accounts instead of military ones. In fact, that's exactly how Russia took advantage of starlink for the first 2 years.
While there might be a legal distinction between the two systems, technically speaking, it's mostly a matter of configuration.
It must be nice to think there is such a clear and high wall between private corporate actors and the US government in 2026. I want to live in that delusion, too. Unfortunately, I retain a minimum amount of skepticism.
From the Starshield Wiki page:
>While SpaceX president and COO Gwynne Shotwell has indicated that there is little information she is allowed to disclose about Starshield, she has noted "very good collaboration" between the intelligence community and SpaceX on the program.
>The retired four-star general Terrence O'Shaughnessy, who previously ran U.S. Northern Command, is the vice president for SpaceX's Special Programs Group who is thought to be involved with Starshield.[1] The Wall Street Journal reported that Starshield's online job postings required people with top-secret clearances, as well as experience working with the Defense Department and intelligence community — such as representing Starshield to Pentagon combatant commands
>Col. Eric Felt, director of space architecture at the office of the assistant secretary of the Air Force for space acquisition and integration, said that there are plans to acquire at least 100 Starshield-branded satellites for this purpose by 2029. He said that while the military is an active user of SpaceX's commercial Starlink service, they also want to take advantage of the company's dedicated Starshield product line.
> The administration of US President Donald Trump has denied any involvement in recent restrictions affecting SpaceX's Starlink satellite communications system in Ukraine, according to Axios on October 14
> Senior advisers to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy held discussions with officials from the White House, CIA, and Pentagon on October 14 to determine whether Washington had authorized the restrictions and explore possible ways to resolve the situation.
> During the talks, White House representatives told Ukrainian officials that the US administration does not control SpaceX, the company operating the Starlink satellite network, according to sources familiar with the discussions.
> One source also indicated that the Trump administration intends to contact SpaceX directly to clarify the circumstances surrounding the restrictions and determine what caused the disruption to Starlink services in Ukraine.
Either Trump or Musk is lying, who it is remains to be seen.
There's a simple test for this - compare how many times Elon has been wrong or outright lied on Twitter vs how many retractions Axios has had over the years due to bad sourcing.
Off-handedly, I've never seen Axios accuse a cave diver of pedophilia or back out of ending world hunger but my perspective is limited. I also assume Axios has a lot of fact-checking processes before they put something on the internet when compared to a tech CEO posting on his own platform. But you may have done a deeper dive on this with a truly rationalist, epistemically rigorous framework.
Or that one wasn't Musk but Starlink sat2sat turns out to be mostly smoke and mirrors, and the satellites simply could not provide services without the ground station in the immediate vicinity of terminals.
He get's his bags from the DoD either way... in-fact the chaos undoubtedly is actually more profitable, make hay while the sun is up... we live in a busted reality of broligarchs that are actually DoD welfare queens. They are literally on both sides of the trade so profit is inevitable. When america elect's a clown, we get a whole 3 ring circus.
Ukrainian drones and missiles are using Starlink to navigate through Russian territory, and Russia is organizing these attacks to defend itself against them.
Factually incorrect. Ukraninian drones or missiles flying over Russia are not using StarShield or Starlink. These are enabled by the US Gov / SpaceX only over Ukraine.
The long range strikes you're seeing have other nav methods (gps, intertial, etc.). I'm sure if Iran can figure it out, Ukraine can too...
I'd hazard a guess that it's because Starlink service is denied in Russian territory and not denied in Ukrainian territory, and provides a way for Ukrainian citizens to remain informed and connected to their communities even with the Russian onslaught on their power and communications infrastructure.
Why do you even write this kind of comment when it's so easily proven to be false? I don't think it's acceptable at all to just claim things you somehow haphazardly assume to be true.
This isn't some obscure detail, but generic information about the ongoing war that most armchair generals know for sure.
Meanwhile today's episode of Slow Horses, a British show, implied that Bulgaria is Russia's friend who will totally accept their plane with a spy and facilitate killing her on "neutral ground"
Sometimes u wonder how does the "West" get consistently so ignorant and/or lazy with their writing about the "East".
There two possibilities. One is that our leaders being very secret about its fight back against the “hybrid war”. That seems unlikely given how many governments there are
The other is that there’s nothing much being done other than continued support of a democratic country that was invaded. The auS used to do that too during the Cold War, but that’s all ended now and the west hasn’t really groked it yet.
Assuming they have a semi-competent military complex, then they should be able to put together plans ahead of time, measures and counter-measures, just like any other institution. What's so shocking about that idea?
Seems pretty feasible at this point that they might be trying to drag NATO into all-out war.
Why would Ukraine attack infrastructure it uses (today's capabilities downgrade is partial, stationary terminals function just fine for example)? In a friendly country? Believe me, it has much more important things to worry about, like surviving a genocidal invasion and countering indiscriminate bombing campaigns.
>trying to drag NATO into all-out war.
By sabotaging a few antennas? "Dragging NATO into an all-out war" is no easy task, if even possible at this point. Just ask the Russians. They have attacked German airports with drones, and barely elicited an upgrade from moderate to strong concern.
>"Bulgarian Interior Minister Ivan Demerdzhiev told parliament that additional security measures had been introduced at similar facilities, even though responsibility for their protection rested with their owners."
It seems absurd that the government is blaming SpaceX for not securing its property against trespass and vandalism/arson, especially when it seems likely that the violations are by foreign-state-sponsored actors. If this sort of issue is not the responsibility of local police and federal agencies, I am not sure what is. I understand that railways in some countries have their own police, but it is my understanding that SpaceX has not been granted such powers in any country.
>If this sort of issue is not the responsibility of local police and federal agencies, I am not sure what is.
It's the Balkans mate. You pay next to no taxes, and so you also get next to no services back from the government.
The Police, education, healthcare, courts, etc. that exist, is just a skeleton crew in minimum load bearing role, not to actually solve your problem when you need it. For that you gotta pay private and costs extra.
As a Balkanian I vouch for this. Even what little you pay as taxes gets embezzled and you are always on your own.
On the upside, there is little that surprises you and you thrive in any environment. Balkans FTW.
Why would Balkan tax payers pay to secure foreign corporation? Especially if that corporation is involved in a war they don't care which makes it a legitimate military target.
>Why would Balkan tax payers pay to secure foreign corporation?
Because foreign corporations operating in the Balkans pay taxes in the balkans, own property/real estate on Balkan soil on which their business operates, and employ workers in the balkans.
Bulgaria is not a war party, Starlink is. Whatever taxes they pay, it doesn't cover special military protection or war involvement, just regular protection from theft, trespass and similar, like any other company not involved in war.
>Bulgaria is not a war party, Starlink is [...] it doesn't cover special military protection or war involvement
Huh? So by your logic, if Russian soldiers in fatigues are shooting up a Ukrainian Roshen candy shop in Sofia Bulgaria, it's no the job of the Bulgarian state to intervene and fire back at those Russian soldiers on Bulgarian soil or arrest them, because according to you it's just a war dispute between Russia and Ukraine that doesn't concern Bulgaria and it's government law enforcement?
In the end it'll be up to the courts to decide if the incident on Starlink is an act of war not covered by insurance and law enforcement, or vandalism that falls under the responsibility of the Bulgarian state law enforcement, but you're logic is pure comedic FUBAR.
A more appropriate comparison would be if Russian agents assassinated a local industrialist.
And, well, would you expect the state to proactively assign military protection details to such people?
No. They would have their own body guards, and maybe a police protection if needed. But not army.
The spy and counterspy agency would probably investigate, but they are not going to post a flak cannon next to each Starlink base station.
> if Russian agents assassinated a local industrialist
Funny you mention that - Russia has tried at least once going back as far as 2024[1]. State security services intervened.
> US intelligence discovered earlier this year that the Russian government planned to assassinate the chief executive of a powerful German arms manufacturer that has been producing artillery shells and military vehicles for Ukraine, according to five US and western officials familiar with the episode.
> When the Americans learned of the effort, they informed Germany, whose security services were then able to protect Papperger and foil the plot. A high-level German government official confirmed that Berlin was warned about the plot by the US.
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/11/politics/us-germany-foiled-ru...
Exactly.
Secret Squirrels will obviously keep track of who wants to blow up Starlink, but they will not interfere unless it makes sense for the country.
Completely different than parking a tank preventively in front of each base station. Or even just a police car.
> Because foreign corporations operating in the Balkans pay taxes in the balkans
Ahaha, as if.
Foreign corporations with presence but no local entity pay no taxes. Foreign corporations with local entities somehow manage pay zero taxes because all profits are transferred to their Ireland parent entities.
Domestic corporations have far less options to not pay taxes, so they mostly do.
You're seriously asking why the state would enforce property rights?
They should rather seize the property of a company trying to make a country involved in war and endangering its population by operating military actions from that country soil.
You're stretching it beyond sound reason.
And by your own argument, Bulgaria would also be at war with Russia then, since Bulgaria has been supporting Ukraine with weapons and material in this war.
Then Bulgaria is a legitimate target. As any other country "supporting <a_war_party> with weapons and material in this war."
Because that foreign corporation presumedly purchased the local property, pays local taxes on it, and probably employs some local people. Or are you claiming that the property of anyone foreign anywhere is up for grabs because they're foreign?
In many countries, foreigners are not even allowed to buy property in the first place.
It’s not exactly uncommon or inconceivable that yes, the property of foreigners doesn’t quite get the same protections.
Starlink sites are mostly at dwdm regen hut sites, which as a general industry baseline have a remarkably low level of security.
most of what police do is after the fact. you're responsible for securing your own property, security guards are a thing everywhere.
security guards vs FSB.
uh huh
Why would the FSB care? Tthe recent limitations on SpaceX in the Ukraine are to Russia's benefit, not Ukraine's.
I believe he was suggesting the saboteurs were FSB because shutting down Ukraine’s Internet access is still in Russia’s interest.
I don't know how that particular perspective was overlooked by me, but it absolutely was!
The people who started the fire are not going to be FSB employees, they're useful idiots that got paid for some vandalism who won't even know who hired them. Plausible deniability.
>most of what police do is after the fact.
This. Police are just the clean-up crew who come 20 minutes after, and fill in the paperwork proving that something bad did indeed happen to you, that you can then use for your lawsuit or insurance claim, nothing more.
Unless you're a politician or the billionaire owner of an island, they're not gonna do much more to actually prevent or solve your problem.
In this case they even might come in and check if you didn't take sufficient actions to prevent this bad event.
An individual will be informed how not having a lock on the door was a failure in individual responsibility to prevent harm against yourself/others.
But an operator of digital infrastructure might get audited for compliance of the critical infrastructure directive/act. In the EU fines for such violations can be as high as €10 million or 2% of global turnover.
Crime Janitors
>"you're responsible for securing your own property, security guards are a thing everywhere."
Maybe Bulgaria differs from most countries, but security guards seem to be mostly theatre. Private actors are generally very limited in what they can do to secure property, and they're usually required to basically call the police and hope the police show up in time to do something, which is often unlikely in either the countryside or industrial areas.
I think the point would be that it's the private company's responsibility to provide a minimum level of security, even if their job is just for deterrence, documentation, and notifying police in a timely manner. Even if it's mostly "theatre" it still serves a purpose.
Even more in this case: The business Starlink is operating is classified as critical infrastructure (in both EU and US)
As providers in the business of critical infrastructure they need to comply to the HIGHEST physical and digital security requirements, which includes taking preventive measures against acts of terrorism.
Not much is known about this case yet though, it's possible that their preventive procedures failed but their resilience procedures worked (was Starlink down?), and they reported the incident in compliance to EU CER and NIS2.
Either way, I'm sure they'll get an audit for EU CER compliance now, which will create a list of mandated immediate actions...
Is deployment of surface-to-air missiles, flak cannons, Gatling guns, and anti-air radars going to become a standard requirement? Unfortunately, Starlink can't go the easy route and just dig itself 100ft underground, they need satellite comms.
Let's not exaggerate. Two persons apparently entered Starlink's premises and put their equipment on fire.
It doesn't take a gatling gun to prevent that, basic physical security and stronger incident-handling will suffice.
Aren't datacenters being targeted with missiles in this conflict? A single incident for a single Starlink datacenter might not have been the result of a missile, but it seems that full-on missile and drone attacks are now a very real part of the threat profile for datacenters.
As resentment towards datacenters grows in the US you might even see increasingly creative acts of vandalism and other attacks in places that are not considered war zones. A pipe bomb tossed it the vents of AC units ups the game of "basic physical security". And you don't have to get that crazy. A $100 drone can drop a bag of BBs.
Basic physical security is already way above basic at ordinary datacenters in seemingly safe locations.
In other cases, yes. Not here.
Sharing information:
In Europe, the airspace above a property is not owned by the company owning the land.
It's owned, monitored and guarded by the local government. Missiles aiming at a data center would first penetrate the national airspace of the country, as well as unlicensed drones do. This is a violation of national airspace and a crime against the country.
Drones are still a weak spot of national security though, as we keep seeing all around the world. But governments in Europe have no doubt that it is their responsibility to secure their airspace, and there are EU-wide activities to fix that.
> "Basic physical security is already way above basic at ordinary datacenters in seemingly safe locations."
From all that is known, this incident is about vetted access control and having a sufficient secure perimeter around your facilities.
In both US and Europe, a data center is considered a critical infrastructure and needs to adhere to the maximum physical and digital security requirements, which is much more substantial than this.
In this case, again, two people apparently penetrated security and put equipment on fire.
This might as well be the warehouse of a supermarket. It's a gap in their security that this happened, not a lapse of the government.
The responsibility to do their best to protect is still with the owner, it doesn't mean they must succeed at any cost. They must only do their best. Did they do their best?
I read the statement as the government introduced additional security measures "even though responsibility for their protection rested with their owners". These measures weren't "surface-to-air missiles, flak cannons, Gatling guns, and anti-air radars". Clearly more could have been done before digging into the bag of silly options. The owners just didn't do it.
There's a fine line between hyperbola to make a point, and hyperbola as a silly attempt to blur the issue. You comment is on the wrong side.
It really depends on the site being secured and who's acting as a guard. Try to storm a major US airbase and you'll learn very quickly that not all guards are created equal. Do the same as your local strip mall and yeah... that guy is only there to break up fights between kids and call the cops.
US airbase guards are not private actors, which is their point.
In Bulgaria the security guards used to be just protection rackets. Then EU happened and the country normalized but even the previous prime minister used to be a bodyguard.
When those people aren’t around Bulgaria is incredibly peaceful country.
Security, physical or software is multi-tiered.
You install gates, raise walls, limit access, hire personnel, etc.
The more you need to secure whatever it is, the more layers you have.
In general, any respectable warehouse would have an external wall with a single entrance to the parking, and then a second entrance to the building itself.
What is the definition of being responsible for a property's security?
Local here. The new prime minister is a spineless russian rag and everyone around him is from the former communist party. You won't find in them anything approaching self-respect or actual will desire to defend against any russian provocation.
Well, then he's on Elon's side I guess...
> If this sort of issue is not the responsibility of local police and federal agencies,
... it means those properties are own sovereign nations, or at least autonomous zones! woo hoo, time to declare independence of People's Republic of Mars.
It is not absurd at all. You can't arrest somebody for a sabotage without letting him to execute the deed. Because if he won't execute there's nothing to arrest him for...
So to prevent a sabotage is to have several layers of security (i.e multiple fences) so you will force the saboteur to commit minor crimes like trespassing first and also slow the saboteur significantly so you can arrest him for these minor crimes.
> You can't arrest somebody for a sabotage without letting him to execute the deed.
Sure you can. We convict people of conspiracy all the time.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/overt_act
Arresting all the people who happen to walk past a strategic object will fill up your prisons very quickly.
Yes, that would be very dumb. Who suggested that?
How else would you like to discover a conspiracy if the saboteur is a tourist coming from abroad? Or of a saboteur is a child who got promised 1000eur for it?
Look at the many examples of it happening for your answer. This isn’t theoretical.
> How else would you like to discover a conspiracy if the saboteur is a tourist coming from abroad?
Tips? Mistakes? Customs officers getting a funny feeling about something in their bags? Google searches? Purchases of stuff to make explosives with? Surveillance? The child tells their parents some creepy guy offered them a thousand Euros? Do you think intelligence agencies don't already look for this sort of thing?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Pastorius has a nice example of how this works that doesn't even rely on modern surveillance tech. They accomplished zero sabotage, and six were put to death for it.
> Even before the mission began, it was in danger of being compromised, as George Dasch, commander of the team, left confidential documents on a train, and one of the agents, while drunk, announced to patrons in a Paris tavern that he was a secret agent.
> Immediately upon reaching the beach, at around 30 minutes past midnight the saboteurs were discovered amidst the dunes by unarmed Coast Guard Seaman John C. Cullen, who was accosted by Dasch and offered a bribe of $300. (Cullen had been shortchanged, the money only amounted to $260.) Cullen feigned cooperation but reported the encounter.
> Additional breaches of secrecy occurred; Kerling had boasted to a colleague about their mission, and in Chicago, Herbert Haupt had asked his father to buy him a sports car claiming he needed it while traveling on business for the German government.
Any operation involving humans has opportunities for fuckups.
99% of saboteurs won't do string of such stupid mistakes. So it is a vanishing chance bordering on luck that intelligence will prevent anything and it will be possible to apply conspiracy charges.
> 99% of saboteurs won't do string of such stupid mistakes.
Why would I presume this to be any more accurate than "can't arrest somebody for a sabotage without letting him to execute the deed" was?
If sabotage is so easy to perform without detection, why aren't motivated actors doing more of it? It's certainly not a lack of motive at play, here.
Humans make mistakes. The saboteur can't afford any. The cops only have to get lucky once. And these are the folks who mix up "SIM card" with the game "The Sims" (https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/04/26/russia...).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-Cross_System
> After the war, it was discovered that all the agents Germany sent to Britain had given themselves up or had been captured, with the possible exception of one who committed suicide.
Not a single successful agent in five years of war.
And yet there is much more successful sabotages than prevented ones. It turns out that one can't see into a mind of other person.
> And yet there is much more successful sabotages than prevented ones.
Do you think they publicly announce every one they catch? Or that none are ever deterred?
> It turns out that one can't see into a mind of other person.
And yet, we manage to catch people planning things, because sabotage requires more than just a thought.
Drones do not care about fences.
> It is not absurd at all. You can't arrest somebody for a sabotage without letting him to execute the deed. Because if he won't execute there's nothing to arrest him for...
You can very well arrest someone for the intention of sabotaging.
Should SpaceX conduct the investigation to prove he had the intention of sabotaging? Ffs
It wouldn't be unprecedented.
https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/05/spacex-pushed-sniper-t...
Less tongue-in-cheek, I would absolutely expect SpaceX has an entire department responsible for security of assets like these.
It's probably just politics, he needs someone to point the finger at.
It's private property, is it not? I don't see why taxpayers should be on the hook for everything, unless they get a return on their investment.
Nationalize the infrastructure if it's that important to the public.
If you have to defend it yourself why pay taxes? Why not use the money to hire your private army instead?
I pay taxes too. I don’t have a policeman stationed outside my home.
You don't have any police stations in your city?
So you agree "taxpayers should be on the hook for everything"?
Every place SpaceX decides to operate, regardless of what taxpayers want, the taxpayers should foot the entire security bill for their private facilities?
Sounds like socialism.
Everything? No, but governments do have the monopoly on violence. As long as that is true, they bare the primary responsibility of security.
So where’s the line drawn? How much should taxpayers be primarily responsible for if a private company doesn’t meet established security standards?
The comments in this thread you’ve joined seem to imply a private company should be held to no standards, and that this specific company’s security should primarily be the responsibility of other taxpayers.
Are you paying for an armed guard at your home? Why not?
Not that different, perhaps, from Russia making businesses responsible for defending their sites against drones. Even threatening to nationalize the businesses that fail to establish adequate defenses. How a business can get ahold of military-grade anti-air defense systems is left mostly unanswered.
Demerdzhiev, Radev and their entire cabinet in general just avoid blaming Russia for some “unknown” reason as a blanket policy. Yesterday, Russia bombed two Ukrainian ships super close to Bulgaria’s waters in the Black Sea, 11 civilians died, and the PM still says we can’t make any conclusions about the perpetrators when questioned in parliament today.
I’m trying to say that the logical conclusion is to shift the responsibility explicitly to SpaceX, since otherwise you have to admit the attacks are state sponsored and you have to name the perpetrator.
They just move the burden of proof and responsibility as needed. 4 ships carrying Ukraine cargo sunk by drones in Bulgarian waters, one of the ships Ukraine owned and the crew full of Ukrainians? No evidence whatsoever on who could have done it so we don’t blame anyone. Yes yes logic says it must be Russia but we need concrete evidence, so unfortunate.
Ukraine responds to Russian attacks? Why Ukraine doesn’t want peace! Why Ukraine doesn’t just capitulate? The coalition of war(he means countries who support Ukraine militarily) is causing so much suffering.
The pro-Russian folks are insufferable.
Ukraine started the attacks on commercial shipping in the Black Sea and Caspian. A 40 day offensive to bring Russia to the negotiation table that backfired when Russia started targeting Ukranian ships and Odessa.
Russia has been targeting Ukrainian ships and shipping infrastructure since the start of the full-scale invasion.
Russia is the aggressor, absolutely.
However, let's talk realpolitik.
Ukraine innovates and Russia copies/addapts. Russia has ALWAYS been good at this game. Russia reminds me so much of the roman military in this sense, extremely good at copying and incorporating foreign military tactics/equipment.
Think of the initial long convoys ukraine destroyed, the bayraktars -- Russia addapted, the then the brilliant Eastern campaign where Ukraine managed to route the russians -- Russia adapted, that stopped working, then the indiscriminate massive artilery strikes Russia was doing -- ukraine started using better western artilery and himars, stopped the russians but the russians also addapted spread their logistics and so on; then the drones -- russia copied those even innovated with fiberoptic drones, then the Shaheds, ukraine adapted with fpv interceptors, then Russia started using jet powered interceptors, balistic missiles -- Ukraine initially stunned the world with Patriot interceptors but Russia kept firing until Ukraine ran out of interceptors, then the USV -- Ukraine had and still has great success with them, but look, Russia started using USVs also and Ukraine has no response to those.
It looks like the end will be decided by the country who just has more resources and willpower to continue.
I'm seriously scared for the next years -- the US is clearly turning hostile to Ukraine, Europe is turing far right with russian puppets everywhere.
"Those who haven't studied history are destined to repeat it". What you cited is factual and not new. Even in WW2, the Soviet army started on a bad footing against Germany. At the start of the many Finnish wars, it also looked like poor strategy would lead to the defeat of the Soviet army. Every time they adapted and ultimately achieved most of their military goals. Today too, after western proclamation of Ukrainian victory for the last 3+ years, it is clear that Ukraine is facing defeat and cannot win unless the European / NATO army join the war directly (which they cannot as it will trigger WW3).
>Today too, after western proclamation of Ukrainian victory for the last 3+ years, it is clear that Ukraine is facing defeat and cannot win
It was equally clear - also to me - that Ukraine is facing defeat in two or three days after the start of large scale invasion. And yet here we are, three years later.
They're doing great. Even if they surrendered today, they exceeded my initial expectations like 300 times already.
> They're doing great.
They've lost around 20% of their territory with no hope of getting it back because they don't have the required number (or armaments) to wage a proper counter offensive. They've lost around 1/4th of their armed force personnels and are now earning the ire of their citizens who are being forcefully conscripted to fight a war they don't want to fight. Huge number of their citizens have migrated to other countries. Their economy is totally devastated. They cannot re-build their country without the mercy, charity and exploitation of foreign powers. As the war drags on, they are getting to the point of no return from where they will not be able to recover from this destruction of population, territorial geopolitics, economy ...
Sure, those who hate the Russians can enjoy how much the war costs them and weakens them. But only racist Europeans have a vested interest in cheering Ukraine's leader to keep fighting an unwinnable war, while they cleverly stay out of it, because they don't care about Ukraine too - Slavs fighting Slavs is good politics for them.
In WWII, it took the USSR 14 months to fight against Germany all through Ukraine, for about 1.4 million killed. The current Russian war against Ukraine is in its 56th month, losses are ~0.6 million killed and Russia holds about 19% of Ukraine, having gained 0.3% over the past year with ~140k killed.
The numbers speak for themselves on who's winning and who's losing the war.
> ... having gained 0.3% over the past year with ~140k killed.
Don't forget, against a NATO trained, NATO armed, NATO supported and NATO financed army.
Also, if one assumes that capturing territory is their only military goal, that does sound bad. It isn't though, right? With Ukraine, their major goal is to ensure that it remains a neutral state whose army and territory can't be used to economically or militarily threaten Russia ever. And their military goals have focused on this task - dismembering the country (which, as you pointed, they have done so by capturing around 20% of its territory, with maybe another 5% still to be occupied?), destroying their economic infrastructure (the captured territory had an impact on Ukraine's GDP loss, 75-80% of Ukraine's energy infrastructure has already been decimated, and their only port was targeted this year - if the war continues, Russia plans to capture Odessa too and convert Ukraine into a land-locked country), destroying Ukraine's military infrastructure (Russia has destroyed most of Ukraine's local missile and drone manufacturing units this year), and by destroying Ukraine's army through attritional warfare (nearly a quarter of Ukraine's army has been killed or injured - sure, way less than that of Russia, but unlike Russia Ukraine can't afford to lose its people).
(In other words, Russia is in no hurry to capture the remaining 4-5% of territory it seeks, because Ukraine will not stop fighting even after that is captured, and dragging the war helps Russia ensure that it can meet its other military goals too).
But ofcourse, why should Europeans care if Ukraine is being destroyed, as long as they kill as many Russians as possible?
Nope. The credit goes mostly to Ukrainian drone manufacturers and drone crews, who cause about 80% of all battlefield deaths. NATO countries have no comparable expertise nor gear.
The rest must be doing overtime then, because the monthly Russian casualties in September were the highest of 2026, climbing from 32k in January to 46k in September.
The only place where I see such narratives besides the dead comments on HN is Russian state TV. Elsewhere, even among the Russian domestic experts, taking these propaganda narratives seriously is a quick way to discredit oneself.
> the US is clearly turning hostile to Ukraine
I think more precise language is important here. It is my perception that a small faction that currently controls the federal US government is hostile to Ukraine. A large majority of the general population of the US seems to support Ukraine.
You might argue that this distinction doesn't change the reality for Ukraine's prospects, but I disagree. The small anti-Ukraine faction in the US is becoming increasingly unpopular within the US. It is doubtful its dominance of the US executive branch will survive the next general election in two years. Its total control of the US government may not survive another month.
The willpower of Ukraine has been underestimated throughout this conflict. It seems a cinch it will hold strong for three more weeks. Then the US campaign for President begins in earnest and it would not be surprising for many US politicians to press against the anti-Ukraine faction in a bid for control of the US Presidency. The US Congress may try to remove itself from under the thumb of the current president and you might see sweeping changes in as little as three months. Or you might not.
Take courage. I think Ukraine's resolution to survive will outlast the influence of Putin fans who happen to have an outsized influence in US politics at the moment.
> large majority of the general population of the US seems to support Ukraine
“61% of Americans sympathize more with Ukraine, compared to only 3% who sympathize more with Russia; 22% who take neither side” [1]. (45% of MAGA supporters, 63% of GOP.)
[1] https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/54157-four-years-after-rus...
Not since the grain corridor agreement. This agreement made commercial shipping off limits.
Russia withdrew from that deal in July 2023
Well, yes, the deal was supposed un-block its own food and fertilizer exports, but they were still sanctioned. It was idiotic to agree to that deal without first getting the sanctions removed. The UN "committed to help facilitate and remove obstacles to unimpeded global exports of Russian food and fertilizers" - something which never materialized.
Completely irrelevant as well as ridiculous. Russia is 100% responsible for any ships being sunk in the Black Sea. Making silly demands when things don’t work out the way they hoped does not shift the blame in any way whatsoever.
Russia can stop the war (and thus sanctions) whenever they choose to. Ukraine does not have that option.
How is it "irrelevant" when there was a deal struck but its terms were violated ? Are all Western deals this way ? No wonder Minsk broke down. How is Russia 100% responsible for any ships being sunk in the Black Sea when Ukraine has sunk >100 vessels in the black sea? Try and separate basic logic from partisan emotion please.
First, this thread is about refuting GPs claim about how this is in response to Ukraine attacking Russian vessels first, which is obviously bullshit.
Second, EU and US were not signatories to any deal between Russia and Ukraine, so any sanction relief was never on the table as part of the grain deal. Russia may have asked for it, but it was not offered or implied in any way by anybody. And yes, this is typically how deals work everywhere.
Third, any ship that Ukraine sinks is 100% on Russia because they’re the reason any ships need to be sunk in the first place. Again, Russia could stop the war today and no further violence would be necessary.
> Ukraine started
Nothing. Your master did with his 3 day invasion.
> They just move the burden of proof and responsibility as needed. 4 ships carrying Ukraine cargo sunk by drones in Bulgarian waters, one of the ships Ukraine owned and the crew full of Ukrainians? No evidence whatsoever on who could have done it so we don’t blame anyone
Well, the official stance of the EU a couple of years ago, when the Nordstream pipeline was attacked, was that it was Russia (even though it was against its interests). So we can have something similar here, right? That it was Ukraine that sunk those vessels. I understand the Bulgarian PM, he's just trying to be a standard EU politician.
> It seems absurd that the government is blaming SpaceX for not securing its property against trespass and vandalism/arson, especially when it seems likely that the violations are by foreign-state-sponsored actors.
SpaceX is actively meddling in foreign-state wars picking whichever side they choose to support on which day. They made their bed.
This makes sense if you completely ignore the existence of american law.
Which American law has forced Starlink to introduce the brand new restrictions on Ukraine's use in the last day?
The relevant framework is US federal defence procurement law, particularly the FAR and DFARS. Starshield is a military system that Musk says is under US government operational control. Much like other defence systems supplied by private contractors, the supplier doesn’t necessarily retain authority over military deployment or usage. The distinction is that no law forced these specific restrictions; the law and contracts provide the framework for the US government to make those decisions.
and yes its ai slop, its about as much effort as you put into asking this question so we are even.
They were not using the (civilian) Starlink.
In the most corrupt administration of all time, American law doesnt really get considered at these levels. There are many things Musk and his companies should legally not be doing but not much really happening there. Especially after DOGE killed most the groups looking into these things and the AG is run by Trumps personal attorneys.
The US government does so why would anyone else care.
> SpaceX is actively meddling in foreign-state wars
Starlink is banned, by the US government, from operating in a military context, and cannot be used for military purposes. Do you have a reference/examples for them meddling/supporting wars, or a hint at what you're referring to for someone out of the loop? This is not allowed by very many laws and policies that have been in place since the company started operating.
I suspect you're making a logical leap that them stopping means they're now supporting some opposition?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_in_the_Russo-Ukrainia...
"Motives" section being the important bits, for why it had to go to the government StarShield system.
Maybe this is the recent disruption referenced?
> On 14 October 2026, Musk said the Ukrainian military was using the US government owned and controlled Starshield system, not Starlink, and the recent change to restrict operational user terminals to those travelling at less than 100 mph (160 km/h) was a US government decision and not his decision.[87]
I don't know why it should be the governments job to secure private properties of corporations against vandalism/arson. It sounds much more absurd to me.
Starlink providing services to a customer (which made them a target in this case) is not a matter the local government of that site needs to protect them against.
--> Is it a local governments' job to secure the local properties of e.g. Lockheed, or the job of Lockheed as a for-profit supplier to the military?
--
Edit, as I expected this to be much more widely known: If you are operating in the business of critical infrastructure (for which Starlink qualifies, explicitly "digital infrastructure"), you have obligations to protect your facilities against physical and cyber attacks and have resilience and business continuity processes in place.
If you decide to operate in a business segment for critical infrastructure, it is not the governments job to secure your business, YOU have to comply to the requirements of operating in this field, and the government can audit and shut down your business if you're not in compliance.
In the EU, where this incident took place, this is well-defined under the CER-directive, and further extended for IT under NIS2 and CRE.
In the US, it's covered by CISA and CIRCIA (Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act)
How is a tax-paying corporation different from a tax-paying person?
It's in the core interest of any government to protect its citizens, including corporate ones.
Both need to act in compliance with local laws and mandates, it's not the job of the government to fill the gaps.
Corporations have more duties of different scale than individuals.
Starlink is a provider of Digital Infrastructure, and is already classified as "Essential Entity" under the EU CER-directive.
As such, it needs to comply with so-called "Physical-Cyber Convergence Requirements", which entails
1. Perimeter and Access Defense
2. All-Hazards Mitigation: Designing infrastructure to resist natural disasters, severe climate changes, or physical sabotage/terrorism.
3. Vetted Personnel: Utilizing mandatory background checks and security clearances for operators working in sensitive zones
Not much is known about this incident at this stage, and I'm sure the government will conduct own investigations. But regardless of the outcome, it will be the duty of Starlink to secure its facilities.
> citizens, including corporate ones
Does any modern body of law consider corporations citizens? They’re national persons. But that’s a separate concept.
>I don't know why it should be the governments job to secure private properties of corporations against vandalism/arson.
because this isn't 'vandalism', this is an act of war by a foreign adversary that is now happening on European and NATO soil on a daily basis, and instead of responding accordingly we talk about this as if a drunk kid laid a fire somewhere
> "because this isn't 'vandalism', this is an act of war by a foreign adversary that is now happening on European and NATO soil on a daily basis"
Agree, the government should step in and (finally!!) take actions against those foreign adversaries.
But this doesn't change the fact that it is not the governments role to protect the facilities of a infrastructure provider against sabotage (or even acts of terror), a company providing such services in the EU has to comply to the CER directive and secure its operations.
There is a very basic reason for that: I could undercut every provider on the market by not investing in security and resilience. while everything works well I will beat all my established competitors and gain a significant share of the market.
This creates a risk of critical infrastructure stability for the citizens of that country. So if inevitable issues in resilience arise.....I demand the government to step in and take over my operations...?
Because internet is a major resource for the population. Its like water or electricity.
Most of those could be easily targeted and taken out by a large organized group but people are generally good and dont do that. If a country's military attacked though you wouldn't blame the water company for someone cutting the locks and destroying the water pumps. Or blowing up an electric facility.
Its not like this is just some random companies headquarters where they have some vehicles and someone broke the gates to spray paint the trucks.
This is an attack on the people of the country as a whole. The attackers are not vandalizing the internet because they dislike starlink they are attacking its people by destroying infrastructure. there is a major difference between the two.
> "Because internet is a major resource for the population. Its like water or electricity."
Yep, the EU classifies this as "critical infrastructure". Operators of such services (including water, electricity and digital infrastructure) have to comply to the highest level of the EU CER-directive for Physical and Cyber Security. This includes physical shielding, strict access controls and resilience against physical sabotage/terrorism as well as natural disasters or severe climate changes
I agree that the government should step up on against the military adversary on a country/regional level, but even then it is not their job to step in and do the job of Starlink as a provider of critical digital infrastructure.
A player in these markets has an obligation to secure his own facilities, otherwise every new market-entrant can undercut all competitors by not investing in security at all, until it's big enough to become a national risk and the government steps in to secure its business.
It's the government's job to protect both individuals and corporations against foreign attack. It's even the government's job to protect against crime.
This is not how this works, corporations are not people.
As a provider for digital infrastructure, Starlink is required to comply with the EU Critical Entities Resilience (CER) Directive, which mandates strict physical and digital security as well as business continuity in case of crisis.
The nature of this incident indicates a security issue on the site of Starlink, which is their duty, not the governments.
They may have not been in compliance with this directive, which puts local infrastructure and citizens and risk.
> "It's even the government's job to protect against crime"
It's the government's job to protect against crime, but the duty of an individual to take proactive measures against becoming a victim of crime ("Individual Responsibility").
--> They won't put a policeman in front of my house just because I decided to not have a door on my house.
-
Equally, (and MUCH more explicitly), it's the legal duty of corporations to protect themsselves against crime, especially if they provide critical infrastructure.
--> They won't put police all over my facilities just because I didn't invest in access-control.
--> In this case, I am not in compliance with the law and considered to invite(!) crime
It's both/and, not either/or. Yes, I have individual responsibility to have a door on my house, and to be careful about walking in sketchy places. And the government has a responsibility to combat crime. Both.
A critical infrastructure company has an obligation to keep their facilities secure. And the government has a responsibility to prevent attacks by foreign actors on critical infrastructure.
> "And the government has a responsibility to prevent attacks by foreign actors on critical infrastructure."
I replied explicitly to "crime", not "foreign actors", let's not conflate those just for a straw-man argument.
Preventing attacks by foreign actors is part of National intelligence and military, this is an entirely different matter. Both are entities facing outwards of a country, not inwards.
But more importantly, their job is not to fulfill the required security duties of a critical infrastructure company to prevent physical/digital attacks against the operation and resilience of its infrastructure.
And even IF they protect such a company in case of an imminent external threat, this is not a replacement for the legally required security compliance.
The critical infrastructure act (US) and directive (EU) mandate strategic measures to take explicitly against terrorist attacks, even natural disasters.
The government won't come to your company and do this job FOR you, they will lock you up and, in the EU, charge you up to xx% of your global annual revenue if they find out you're not doing it.
Depends on the infra, and the level of anxiety generally and specifically.
Petty vandalism no, but I’ve worked at a few and know more completely non-military business premises that absolutely have “military barricade” or the like quietly in their contingency plans.
Funny thing is, a bit of arson is kind of normal on their estates. But usually it’s just stolen cars.
The EU already classifies digital services like those provided by Starlink as "critical infrastructure".
Operators of such services have to comply to the highest level of the EU CER-directive for Physical and Cyber Security. This includes physical shielding, strict access controls and resilience against physical sabotage/terrorism as well as natural disasters or severe climate changes. This is the duty of every player in this business.
The government has a job to stand up against a potential adversary of the country (be it other countries or local terrorists), and in case of an attack on critical infrastructure the government will also step in to protect it, I agree on that.
But it doesn't have the job to take over Starlink's (or whoever's) business operations and make it secure. That is the job of the company, long before it even appears on any map of a potential adversary...
It's absolutely the role of the security agencies to protect against foreign attack. Are Oil tankers and Cargo ships supposed to have air defense? What about the World Trade Centers? Otherwise there is no purpose to having a military if you won't defend your sovereignty.
That doesn't absolve the orgs responsibility, but the questions should be directed at both.
I'm certain there will be investigations from the government, not only due to the suspicion of a foreign state attack but also on the grounds of Starlink not sufficiently securing their premises.
It's not the responsibility of security agencies to prevent two guys from entering the premises of a critical infrastructure provider with gasoline.
They may have prior intelligence to act on this, but it is the operator of that facility who has the responsibility to ensure a certain level of security and resilience of his own premises, and this is strictly defined.
-
> "Are Oil tankers and Cargo ships supposed to have air defense?"
No, this would turn a civilian into a combatant ship, causing it to lose the civilian protections of the UN (The Ocean is governed by conventions of the United Nations, it's a different jurisdiction)
And still, oil tankers and cargo ships have requirements to secure themselves against piracy, terrorism and even warfare, mandated by the international maritime organization.
> federal agencies
It's cute when Americans assume every country's constitution is the same as their own.
> "It seems absurd that the government is blaming SpaceX for not securing its property against trespass and vandalism/arson, especially when it seems likely that the violations are by foreign-state-sponsored actors"
I think neither private companies nor tax-payers would appreciate if the POLICE would run security for a for-profit corporation, as it means that all corporate access-permissions would de-facto be managed by the government administration (which would be financed by the taxes of citizens and other corporations...)
Also: Would be even more ironic for Starlink to now demand big-BIG-government after their CEO keeps pushing for small-government for years now. But it fits the typical "Privatize profits, socialize costs" view...
When you start acting militarily, secure your own shit militarily.
You don't need any special power to hire security at your plant or warehouse.
Bit of one, bit of the other.
If I open something like a stadium, and whenever there's a big game I need a load of security to deal with traffic, drunk fans, and fights - arguably most of the security should be paid for from ticket sales, rather than the taxpayer, although the taxpayer should be there as the final backstop.
Likewise, if I have a bank with a vault full of valuables and I think it needs 3 armed guards present 24/7 - probably that's going to be at my expense, not that of the taxpayer. Although any bank should get a police presence in a reasonably timely manner, once they raise the alarm about a robbery.
The facility is owned by Vivacom, a Bulgarian company (SpaceX presumably leases space). Facility location here: 42.4838°N, 23.4466°E
I am getting a bit concerned that Russia is actually planning an attack on Eastern Europe.
It’s just like red storm rising, their refineries have been blown up and their diesel will only last 6 months. They need to move now or they’ll have to accept peace and economic prosperity.
At least one betting market has the odds at around 25% [1] of a direct military conflict with a NATO country by year's end. It will be interesting to see how things change after November's midterm elections. For what it's worth, Metaculus forecasters show a spike of likelihood at the end of September, 2027, with about 20% of forecasters saying that's when a military clash will happen. I'm not sure what's driving that spike in the forecast.
[1] https://polymarket.com/event/nato-x-russia-military-clash-in... [2] https://www.metaculus.com/questions/41238/when-will-russia-a...
Man do I feel gross knowing that there's people betting on this.
There are people making billions.
And there are people losing the same amount. I don’t get why people would use these markets as rigged as they are, other than using them to steer outcomes. (Bet 1b that Poland will attack Russia and that gives an incentive for someone to take that bet and stop it happening. Or vice versa.)
But isn't it somewhat realistic ? Once the Democrats take power in the House, they will ramp up the supply of US military aid and possibly force Trump to impose a so-called "no-fly" zone in Ukraine. There are war-hawks on both sides to push for this and they did push for this several times before. That will mean NATO & USAF involvement to enforce air superiority and bombing of Russian missile/drone sites and hence direct military clashes with Russia. It will likely snowball from there.
Attacking a NATO country would mean total war for Russia. Currently there are no signs that Russia is ready for total war, or willing to have one. Russia has been fighting a war of attrition in Ukraine for 4 years, without a moving frontline, exactly because it wants to win by slow attrition.
Total war (all money going to the war, millions of mobilized workers, etc.) would result in an economic collapse, which Russia is trying to avoid. Aside from "inconveniences" like Yandex AI not working after a data center hit, Russia's everyday life is largely unaffected by the war (at least compared to Ukraine's) - exactly because it is avoiding total war.
If Russia were desperate enough to finally go all in and have full mobilization (millions of conscripts, all industry working around the clock building nothing but drones and missiles, etc.), why would it start by attacking random EU countries instead of Ukraine itself? So I think it's very unlikely that anything is going to happen to Europe other than sabotage here and there. Remember that Putin is a KGB agent, and they're more about targeted tactical operations than strategic chess play.
The whole "special military operation" thing was itself just a way to quickly coerce Zelensky into signing an agreement by threatening force, without total war, but it fell apart, so they had to go this war-of-attrition route
> why would it start by attacking random EU countries instead of Ukraine itself?
Because it would force NATO to divert resources away from Ukraine.
this goes both ways; they'd be gambling that NATO doesn't launch things into Russia. From the accounts I've seen they did strip down the rest of the border forts to supply Ukraine.
Also, most of NATO's existing resources are currently not doing much but standing around. You can question how useful NATO's 'pre-drone' material is, and how much hasn't already been sent to Ukraine, but it's not nothing.
>they'd be gambling that NATO doesn't launch things into Russia
The official discourse in Russia is that NATO is already helping Ukraine launch things into Russia. So there's no gamble; for them, it's already a fact. Except, currently, it's just a proxy war where Ukraine has to jump through hoops to get military aid and targets approved, and it can only fire from Ukraine's territory. With a direct confrontation, there's no doubt that far more would be launched into Russia.
How would a direct war with NATO on several fronts help Russia win in Ukraine? Russia isn't ready for it in the slightest. As I said, if they wanted to go all in (full mobilization instead of partial, martial law, converting all industry to military production, etc.), it would be more logical to focus first on that 1 country they want to defeat, rather than immediately triggering Article 5 and fighting 32 countries at once. It just doesn't make any sense, and judging by the Kremlin's decisions over the last 4 years, I don't think they're that stupid.
If you're interested in the logic behind this war, you might be interested in learning from Anders Puck Nielsen, author of The Logic of War.
- https://youtu.be/z61ZuZ08jRA?si=_GChfuUptluluave&t=602
- https://youtu.be/NCEKsF9w8uQ?si=WkguFDu0vSdm1dbR&t=405
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opa3s2VuD0s
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQmxNTloGmw
> Attacking a NATO country would mean total war for Russia.
Is that so? I wouldn't trust the USA to commit to its NATO responsibilities anymore. The rest of NATO, torn as it is, could just as well find all kinds of reasons why this particular attack isn't a "real" attack, just to avoid the confrontation.
I wouldn't bet on that scenario happening, but as Russia, I wouldn't dismiss it outright either.
Europe has 4 times the population of Russia. The only successful attacks in the past 20 years have been against politically divided countries, like Syria, Venezuela and Ukraine (civil war since 2014). Iran is united, and so is Europe.
Lavrov has indicated he knows Russia would lose a conventional war against Europe by saying that an attack by Europe would start a quick (i.e. nuclear) war.
I agree that the US would stay out, especially if it is nuclear.
Lavrov says all kinds of things. Whatever he utters serves a purpose and has no logical relation to truth.
Don’t underestimate the capability of the EU to gridlock itself with decision paralysis. If we were decisive actors, we would have long stopped tolerating the hybrid attacks Russia is deploying against us today. Europe is anything but united now! We’re still purchasing oil from Russia. We can’t even agree on acting against the shadow fleet, or sanctioning all oligarchs, or applying second order sanctions.
A drone loaded with explosives targeting a German airport? We were merely lucky that it had a technical defect, or it may have been a disaster of epic proportions. Do you recall what the reaction to that was? I thought so.
Until we manage to gain some kind of unified agency, you better hope Russia cannot handle the logistics yet.
> Europe has 4 times the population of Russia
Multiple European governments are about to flip right. I’m not convinced a La Pen administration would send French troops to protect the Baltics or even Poland.
> why would it start by attacking random EU countries instead of Ukraine itself?
Because if russian troops appear in EU countries, EU might be more willing to accept Ukraine losing larger territories in peace deals. That's why EU has to - once attacked - hit russia so strongly, that they will retreat on our conditions.
Finally a lucid comment.
Interestingly enough 4 ships in the past week were sunk in Bulgaria’s territorial waters by drones.
The Bulgarian PM has refused to name Russia responsible.
It does seem like they’re “testing the waters”, so to speak.
No, there won't be an open attack, at least not yet. There will be more of those "hybrid" incursions. Russians will be gradually increasing the intensity of those operations, so that it becomes the new normal. There will never be a clear "well now they are attacking" boundary to point to.
Meanwhile, the EU is still buying fossil fuels from Russia, thus paying for all this. It boggles the mind.
Long-term contracts. Also logistics is a harsh mistress. If you have no LNG terminals, your options of buying natural gas from the US are limited.
Fuck those contracts if one side of it is engaged in active war against another nation.
Technically the EU is buying from India which buys from Russia. Alas prices are still high in India, since the benefit is mainly going to a few billionaires. Our billionaires are even more richer than Chinese ones while our people are poorer.
Russia needs a huge mobilization.
Mobilization turned out to be extremely unpopular, so they can't just do that without some exceptional cause.
That cause would be NATO attacking Russia. So they're engaging heavily in hybrid warfare, doing stuff like that in Europe. They're tying to provoke some small retaliation from NATO countries.
If that happens, they'll declare that the barbarians are at the gate, and they need a huge mobilization of troops.
But they have no interest in actually fighting against NATO. It would end disastrously for Russia, any way you slice it. Kaliningrad would be completely cut off and surrounded, their Arctic and Baltic sea routes would be hostile.
As a bonus, a potential real war with Russia would increase far-right isolationist popularity in Europe.
Personally I think this is all a play to mobilize a ton of soldiers, send them to Ukraine, and expand their occupied areas before a peace deal comes to the table.
I follow most of what you're saying, but not so much the increase in the popularity of far-right ideology. Surely Russia explicitly positioning themselves as a common enemy of Europe (rather than the current cold war status) would galvanise Europe? Most of the far-right personalities across Europe are very soft on Russia, to say the least.
On the other hand imagine how popular would a real nationalist far right party be that would say "fight Russia"
As it happens, pretty much all far right nationalist parties are friendly with Russia. It would take a huge effort to change that discourse, or to build a new far right party from scratch - and now even without russian botnet support.
Yes it’s complicated. Nationalists aren’t necessarily right or far right. Until a few decades ago, the left were anti-migration and anti-globalisation due to the downward pressure on wages and working conditions. In this current political zeitgeist, the left have abandoned the working class and the right is happy to take their votes.
In a war with Russia, I imagine parties aligned with European strength would fare better. Parties which have previously suggested using kid gloves with Russia will fare worse. I think this implies that some right and left wing parties will not do well.
Lavrov had said it would be a short war if Europe attacks, suggesting they will use nuclear weapons immediately. Russia knows it cannot win a conventional war with Europe.
They don't need a war with Europe for conscription, just to declare war on Ukraine instead of a Special Military Operation. There is pressure on Putin to do this to finish the war quickly, but he is resisting.
Lavrov is a known liar: you can tell by the fact that he's moving his lips. That's kind of his job, really: lying.
They're not planning an attack on Eastern Europe. They are desperate to wrap up their Ukraine fiasco.
Russia is only winning in Ukraine because Ukraine has been in a civil war since 2014. They can take oblasts in the East of Ukraine but have no hope of taking Western Ukraine. Attacking a united Europe is unfeasible. I suspect the war drums in Europe are more to support unpopular leaders like Macron and Mertz.
Europe lacks diesel, so that is not a motive for war.
Russia started exporting diesel to the US with Trump's new deal, indicating Russia has a surplus.
Russia is exporting less than a day's worth of diesel per month. They don't have a surplus, they're trying to get US to stop Ukrainian attacks on their refineries, since they cannot do that on their own.
I am convinced that if a attack is to happen, it will be right after the midterms. The US will be paralyzed by invocation of the Insurrection Act (or similar coup-y acts) so, unable to react.
My even biggest concern is the US will support Russia in a hybrid war as they are currently doing in Ukraine, from disabling Starlink, convenient trade obligations/restrictions, to grounding F-35s.
While the article deals with the topic that is not funny at all, I am amused by people having somewhat ironic names:
> Plamen Tonchev, head of Bulgaria's State Agency for National Security (DANS) said he believed the fire at the Starlink facility was an act of sabotage.
"Plamen" means "Flame", when translated from most Slavic languages (incl. bulgarian) to English.
You might enjoy this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_determinism. Not quite the same thing, more like if Plamen was a firefighter (or arsonist, I guess), but it's what your comment reminded me of.
There is definitely much more sympathy for Russia in Bulgaria than in Poland (I've noticed this esp. with older folks: "our Russian brothers").
I know next to nothing about Bulgaria, other than where it is.
Is that sympathy expressed for the people or for the nation? I definitely have sympathy for Russian mothers, having their sons sent to war. And the emigrants that can barely return to meet their family. But I'd also be happy to fight those sons if they think Russia has claims to anything outside previously agreed borders.
Disclaimer: I am not Bulgarian; I know it only through an ex and her family. I learned some of the language but didn't get anywhere near fluency (it is easier than Russian though).
The Bulgarian national myth has an important chapter in the late 19c where Russia liberates their fellow Orthodox Slavs from the Ottoman yoke[0], paving the way for modern Bulgarian independence. This is a powerful historical memory for many Bulgarians, but is somewhat tempered by their experience of Soviet rule, and also by contemporary Russian territorial aggression. But in my experience you will still find a lot of older folks who instinctively sympathize with Russia for these historical reasons. I will defer to any actual Bulgarians here, though, who understand these matters much better than I ever will.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Turkish_War_(1877%E2%80%...
Who else is very concerned that corporations are becoming valid war targets lately? I get that when a corporation is assisting a war effort it a combatant (corporate personhood etc..) but I work for a corporation and I don't want to be a valid war target.
Are you saying that you think providing people with internet access should be classified as an act of war, or do you mean that you worry that other people might?
always has been
"Won't somebody please think of the corporations!?"
I don't think you should feel entirely safe in warring nations, no matter what you do.
corporations don't care about you
I don’t want to be mean, but this seems like an extremely naïve thing to say unless you’re being insincere.
Are you familiar with how warring nations treat each others infrastructure during wartime? Silicon Valley is a top-5 target, if not top-3 target, for strategic[1] destruction.
[1] strategic in the sense of causing damage without escalating to nuclear war.
I didn't realize that in addition to the 11,127 satellites in our orbit it also takes over 1,500 ground antenna in the US alone to run this network? It seems likely that there is much more ground infrastructure than space infrastructure to make Starlink work
The satellites are glorified repeaters.
There was some talk about having the satellites form a laser mesh but I don't think they've gone live with anything like that, so it almost always just comes back down at the nearest site.
Most of the satellites now have three 200GBps inter-satellite links. The starlink V3 that will be launched on the big rocket reportedly have six ISLs.
Since when? Last I heard this was just vaporware.
Since 2021 when they started deploying the v1.5 satellites.
The only source I have ever seen is the US SDA confirming they have seen a demonstration of Starlink’s ISL, in 2024.
Do you have any more detailed or up to date information? I’m not doubting that they built ISL capabilities, since ISL is often used for collision avoidance and small scale satcom - I’m doubting that it is being actively used to route internet traffic.
I used it in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on a Hawaiian Airlines flight two years ago, where have you been
I think you’re missing part of the conversation here. We are not discussing Starlink’s capability to deliver internet signals.
it's a LEO constellation, the only way it can deliver Internet in the middle of the ocean is by using the inter-satellite lasers
Yes, they had these plans from the get-go so launching the necessary hardware is not surprising. The question was whether anything like that went live
Once it does go live, anyone could see the lower ping between two users of this network. If they say it got enabled, that wouldn't be hard to independently verify
Its already live, Starlink works in the Arctic far outside the line of sight of any base station.
What demonstrates ISL use is service availability in the middle of oceans, far from any ground station.
https://www.starlinkflights.com/how-to-check-starlink-flight:
"Unlike older geostationary satellite systems that had coverage gaps and high latency over remote oceans, Starlink's low-earth orbit constellation covers the entire globe. Qatar Airways, United Airlines, Alaska Airlines, and airBaltic all offer uninterrupted Starlink on long-haul international routes."
Do you have a source for this claim?
SpaceX form S-1 filed on 5/20/2026:
"... as of March 31, 2026, our constellation already incorporated over 23,000 inter-satellite lasers that create a dynamic mesh network in space, enabling traffic to route through orbit rather than relying solely on terrestrial backhaul infrastructure."
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1181412/000162828026...
Yes, it turns out I'm wrong about them not doing inter-satellite links.
Wait. They're not doing the orbital mesh?!
I thought that was fundamental to the whole network?
Not another Elon bullshit?
Don’t jump on the ignorance bandwagon.
I wasn't, I was asking if it was another bullshit exaggeration from Musk. I though the laser interlinks were fundamental, but I'd as easily be unsuprirsed if they were Starlink's equivalent of 'FSD autopilot'.
I'm generally pro-SpaceX and am impressed with the rate of Starlink's development, but given his long history of ...shall we say... 'over-promising' it seems prudent to check the detail.
They are doing orbital mesh, still need downlinks though, and having them close to the earthbound endpoint is key for low latency.
[0]https://www.trackstarlink.com/guides/starlink-laser-links-ex... [1]https://starlink.com/technology
Well, if they are just glorified repeaters, perhaps european union can hurry the fuck up and build their own network, because at the pace of events we are seeing in about 1 year from now, the USA and Russia will tell us how Ukraine and EU are responsible for starting the war and they need to learn a lesson.
Oh wait, we are already here as if few days ago. Never mind.
Laser link has been operational since 2021:
https://www.trackstarlink.com/guides/starlink-laser-links-ex...
They’ve had it since at least 2022, here is a more recent document explaining access in the middle of the ocean for Royal Caribbean cruise ships:
https://www.royalcaribbean.com/guides/wifi-cruise-packages
My starlinks in Central Asia emerge from Bulgaria, 2,500 miles away.
How else do you expect the satellites to connect to AWS or Google? It obviously has to come down at some point otherwise your packets wouldn’t be able to go anywhere…
I find it somewhat interesting Russia is likely sabotaging these stations while Musk is limiting StarLink capabilities to Ukraine in fighting Russia. Very Spy vs Spy. Pick a lane!
> while Musk is limiting StarLink capabilities to Ukraine in fighting Russia
Can you share a link? AFAIK Musk blocked Starlink for Russians, not Ukrainians.
https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/ukraine-accus...
Lots of quotes from Ukrainians about what they are accusing SpaceX of, and even misleading titles "NO WARNING BEFORE STARLINK CUTS", but the actual meat of it is pretty hidden.
Starlink never allowed use for offensive drone attacks, Starshield is what they were using, and it is a product fully controlled by the USG.
>Lots of quotes from Ukrainians about what they are accusing SpaceX of, and even misleading titles "NO WARNING BEFORE STARLINK CUTS"
Damned if you do, damned if you don't, I guess.
https://kyivindependent.com/this-cannot-be-a-coincidence-ukr...
You're telling me appeasement doesn't work?
You're talking about Starshield, which is operated by the US Government via services contracted, not personally regulated by Musk himself.
Starlink, the commercial product, was always off limits for military operations (the type that require connectivity at 100+ MPH).
So, no, this is not one person dictating the usage.
Starlink’s Acceptable Use Policy explicitly prohibits:
- Remotely controlling or piloting any aerial drone or unmanned vehicle (unless otherwise contractually permitted by SpaceX).
- Engaging in any military activity other than approved morale/welfare/recreation programs for service members.
Can you say with assurance, hopefully with evidence, which entity has degraded service as described?
> Starlink’s Acceptable Use Policy explicitly prohibits
Starlink's AUP is whatever Musk decides it is when he decides. He is petty, and there are robust examples of his pettiness as it relates to X and Starlink (I'm unaware if he's weaponized Tesla vehicle access in this regard, but welcome citations, if they exist).
"For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law."
https://daringfireball.net/linked/2026/04/29/musk-more-petty...
(if you do not rely on Musk controlled systems, he cannot weaponize them against you; choose your risk exposure accordingly)
Yes- if they were using it for drone attacks and the service stopped/slowed, that was not Starlink, because it never would have happened in the first place.
> I'm unaware if he's weaponized Tesla vehicle access in this regard, but welcome citations, if they exist
Before the Model 3 was announced, a curious user poked around his car's network, and found multiple references to it, which he leaked to a news site.
Tesla responded by remotely forcibly downgrading his vehicle's firmware to an older version with no references to the 3 (presumably so he couldn't make any further discoveries), blacklisting his vehicle from getting any firmware upgrades, and to make sure he didn't try to thwart that, disabling the ethernet interface.
It's only one set of satellites. Stop pretending that its different.
They actually are separate satellites and it's easily checked:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starshield#Launches
This only says that dedicated satellites exist, which is obvious and public knowledge. What it doesn't comment on is whether starlink and starshield use any common ifra, which they almost certainly do. The number of starshield satellites is simply way, way, way too low to meet the claims that people are making about the system. It's a geometry problem.
Starshield uses all of Starlink's satellites and a few special ones specific to Starshield. There's been plenty of cases in Ukraine of suicide drones being configured to starlink accounts instead of military ones. In fact, that's exactly how Russia took advantage of starlink for the first 2 years.
While there might be a legal distinction between the two systems, technically speaking, it's mostly a matter of configuration.
The home in Starlink mobile usage was closed by SpaceX in cooperation with Ukraine a long time ago.
> Starlink, the commercial product, was always off limits for military operations (the type that require connectivity at 100+ MPH).
Lots of Ukrainian use of satellite communications is where people are hiding in a makeshift bunker. Those don't usually travel at 100+ MPH.
>Musk is limiting StarLink capabilities to Ukraine
Incorrect. The US government limited Starshield, the military version of Starlink which it controls. SpaceX has no say.
It must be nice to think there is such a clear and high wall between private corporate actors and the US government in 2026. I want to live in that delusion, too. Unfortunately, I retain a minimum amount of skepticism.
From the Starshield Wiki page:
>While SpaceX president and COO Gwynne Shotwell has indicated that there is little information she is allowed to disclose about Starshield, she has noted "very good collaboration" between the intelligence community and SpaceX on the program.
>The retired four-star general Terrence O'Shaughnessy, who previously ran U.S. Northern Command, is the vice president for SpaceX's Special Programs Group who is thought to be involved with Starshield.[1] The Wall Street Journal reported that Starshield's online job postings required people with top-secret clearances, as well as experience working with the Defense Department and intelligence community — such as representing Starshield to Pentagon combatant commands
>Col. Eric Felt, director of space architecture at the office of the assistant secretary of the Air Force for space acquisition and integration, said that there are plans to acquire at least 100 Starshield-branded satellites for this purpose by 2029. He said that while the military is an active user of SpaceX's commercial Starlink service, they also want to take advantage of the company's dedicated Starshield product line.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starshield
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2110445577184133456
White House Denies Restricting Starlink in Ukraine, Says SpaceX Is Beyond Its Control - https://united24media.com/world/trump-white-house-denies-res... - October 15th, 2026
> The administration of US President Donald Trump has denied any involvement in recent restrictions affecting SpaceX's Starlink satellite communications system in Ukraine, according to Axios on October 14
> Senior advisers to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy held discussions with officials from the White House, CIA, and Pentagon on October 14 to determine whether Washington had authorized the restrictions and explore possible ways to resolve the situation.
> During the talks, White House representatives told Ukrainian officials that the US administration does not control SpaceX, the company operating the Starlink satellite network, according to sources familiar with the discussions.
> One source also indicated that the Trump administration intends to contact SpaceX directly to clarify the circumstances surrounding the restrictions and determine what caused the disruption to Starlink services in Ukraine.
Either Trump or Musk is lying, who it is remains to be seen.
Or Axios's source is simply mistaken.
There's a simple test for this - compare how many times Elon has been wrong or outright lied on Twitter vs how many retractions Axios has had over the years due to bad sourcing.
Off-handedly, I've never seen Axios accuse a cave diver of pedophilia or back out of ending world hunger but my perspective is limited. I also assume Axios has a lot of fact-checking processes before they put something on the internet when compared to a tech CEO posting on his own platform. But you may have done a deeper dive on this with a truly rationalist, epistemically rigorous framework.
Musk and Trump have a long track record of lying, Axios doesn't.
https://elonmusk.today/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_predictions_for_autono...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_or_misleading_statements...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-fact-checker-tra...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor
Or that one wasn't Musk but Starlink sat2sat turns out to be mostly smoke and mirrors, and the satellites simply could not provide services without the ground station in the immediate vicinity of terminals.
I don’t get this claim that’s been repeated so much, given everyone can personally see the evidence (service over oceans, Antarctica etc)
He get's his bags from the DoD either way... in-fact the chaos undoubtedly is actually more profitable, make hay while the sun is up... we live in a busted reality of broligarchs that are actually DoD welfare queens. They are literally on both sides of the trade so profit is inevitable. When america elect's a clown, we get a whole 3 ring circus.
Ukrainian drones and missiles are using Starlink to navigate through Russian territory, and Russia is organizing these attacks to defend itself against them.
Factually incorrect. Ukraninian drones or missiles flying over Russia are not using StarShield or Starlink. These are enabled by the US Gov / SpaceX only over Ukraine.
The long range strikes you're seeing have other nav methods (gps, intertial, etc.). I'm sure if Iran can figure it out, Ukraine can too...
then why do you think there're attacks on starlink's base stations ?
I'd hazard a guess that it's because Starlink service is denied in Russian territory and not denied in Ukrainian territory, and provides a way for Ukrainian citizens to remain informed and connected to their communities even with the Russian onslaught on their power and communications infrastructure.
At least partly because Russian troops are in Ukraine and Ukraine can use Starshield and Starlink (comms only) to fight them.
Why do you even write this kind of comment when it's so easily proven to be false? I don't think it's acceptable at all to just claim things you somehow haphazardly assume to be true.
This isn't some obscure detail, but generic information about the ongoing war that most armchair generals know for sure.
Meanwhile today's episode of Slow Horses, a British show, implied that Bulgaria is Russia's friend who will totally accept their plane with a spy and facilitate killing her on "neutral ground"
Sometimes u wonder how does the "West" get consistently so ignorant and/or lazy with their writing about the "East".
Europe looks incredibly weak at present and the US incredibly corrupt.
Can you just pinpoint your location for us?
I’m in Europe
There two possibilities. One is that our leaders being very secret about its fight back against the “hybrid war”. That seems unlikely given how many governments there are
The other is that there’s nothing much being done other than continued support of a democratic country that was invaded. The auS used to do that too during the Cold War, but that’s all ended now and the west hasn’t really groked it yet.
Right after Starlink partially cut the pipe to Ukraine... Right at the time an Ukranian is facing a court of justice for the Nord Stream pipeline...
So you think that Ukraine is able to pull out such operation on foreign soil in matter of hours?
Assuming they have a semi-competent military complex, then they should be able to put together plans ahead of time, measures and counter-measures, just like any other institution. What's so shocking about that idea?
Seems pretty feasible at this point that they might be trying to drag NATO into all-out war.
Why would Ukraine attack infrastructure it uses (today's capabilities downgrade is partial, stationary terminals function just fine for example)? In a friendly country? Believe me, it has much more important things to worry about, like surviving a genocidal invasion and countering indiscriminate bombing campaigns.
>trying to drag NATO into all-out war.
By sabotaging a few antennas? "Dragging NATO into an all-out war" is no easy task, if even possible at this point. Just ask the Russians. They have attacked German airports with drones, and barely elicited an upgrade from moderate to strong concern.
At heart, honestly, I hope you are right, but the signs are there.
I only see signs of concern trolling and perhaps a bit of pro-Russian bias, to be honest.
No they aren’t.
Of course they are.