Russians Try To Replace Starlink But Ukraine Blows Up Cell Towers, Signals Troops

Ever since Russian forces lost access to Starlink, they have lost cohesion, coordination and command decision-making. That the Kremlin also chose that moment to deny access to the widely popular Telegram system due to Putinesque paranoia about technology he couldn't entirely control didn't help. But the Russians have worked hard to try to come up with an alternative system that will provide similar, if not entirely satisfactory communications strength. In doing so, though, they have had to face an unexpectedly serious problem: the Ukrainians have been tracking their technology development and how it is routed, quickly identifying the use of wireless repeating towers. They have then targeted both the towers and the hapless Russian signals troops charged with installing or repairing them, takiing them out with drone strikes as the photo to the right illustrates. The result has been continued frustration for Russian forces attempting to execute battle plans for which there is no easy way of communicating and coordinating. JL  

Emily Rhodes reports in Medium, David Axe reports in Trench Art:

Three months after losing access to Starlink satellites, the Russians are getting desperate. Blowing up Russia’s wireless repeaters, Ukraine is working to prolong its advantage. Russian Wi-Fi communications can partially replace the loss of Starlink, but to be effective, the central nodes must be located as high as possible for radio line-of-sight. That makes communications towers such as this one easy targets for Ukrainian FPV drones. The repeaters aren’t hard to find and strike. When the Russians began climbing towers to install repeaters, the Ukrainians sortied drones to hunt them down. The poor radio troops are easy targets, as montages of Ukrainian drone strikes attest. 

Three months after losing access to Starlink satellites, the Russians are getting desperate. There’s a pattern in modern warfare that keeps repeating itself: every time one side builds an advantage, the other side learns how to break it faster than expected. Russia’s latest attempt to solve one of its biggest battlefield problems was supposed to change that pattern. Instead, it may have reinforced it. For months, Russia has been struggling with a quiet but critical vulnerability… communication. Not tanks, not missiles, not manpower, but something far less visible and far more important: the ability to stay connected in real time on a chaotic battlefield. When access to Starlink became restricted earlier in 2026, the impact on Russian forces wasn’t just inconvenient… it was deeply disruptive. Units lost coordination. Drone operations became less efficient. Command chains slowed down. In a war where seconds matter, that kind of delay can be fatal. Blowing up Russia’s wireless repeaters, Ukraine is working to prolong its connectivity advantage. Russian Wi-Fi communications can partially replace the loss of Starlink, but to be effective, the central nodes must be located as high as possible for radio line-of-sight. That makes communications towers such as this one easy targets for Ukrainian FPV drones Recent footage of Ukrainian drone strikes on tower-mounter repeaters underscores the value of the repeaters—and their vulnerability. The repeaters, fixed to the tallest tower in a given area, can extend wireless signals across the war zone and allow drone operators to stay connected to their drones even as the drones fly over the horizon. But the repeaters aren’t hard to find and strike. When the Russians began climbing towers to install repeaters, the Ukrainians sortied drones to hunt them down. The poor radio troops are easy targets, as montages of Ukrainian drone strikes attest.

Ukraine’s slow-burn campaign to suppress Russian air defenses in occupied Ukraine has cleared the air over wide swathes of the battlefield, allowing Ukrainian air force manned fighters to penetrate deeper inside what was once Russian-controlled air space to deliver precision glide bombs. The same campaign—at least 492 strikes on air defenses between June and early March—is also clearing the way for Ukraine’s escalating drone raids targeting headquarters, drone teams, supply convoys and, yes, any surviving air defenses in the logistical zone stretching around 150 miles behind the no-man’s-land Drones suppress Russian air defenses, enabling manned and unmanned aircraft to strike harder and more frequently, further degrading those air defenses in the process. It’s a virtuous cycle for Ukrainian deep strike forces—and a death spiral for Russian forces in occupied territory. In blasting Russian repeaters and their installers, Ukrainian forces complicate Russian forces’ efforts to restore their disrupted front-line communications and get their drones back in the air.