Since the Russian invasion began, Ukranians have shared recipes for making Molotov cocktails
and instructions for driving abandoned troop carriers.
They’ve used encrypted apps to coordinate tactics and to ask Russians to stand up to
their government, who in turn have staged protests in Moscow and other cities.
Though it may end up losing in the battlefield,
Ukraine has been able to show the world the brutality and folly of the Russian attack,
which is only possible because everyday citizens have maintained access to the internet.
But maybe not for long: in areas with the heaviest fighting, internet outages are becoming common,
and since information is power in the battlefield, there’s a danger that Russia
will find a way to knock the country fully offline.
Which is why Ukraine’s Minister of Digital Transformation,
and Vice Prime Minister tweeted a plea to Elon Musk, “We ask you to provide Ukraine
with Starlink stations and to address sane Russians to stand.”
“Starlink service is now active in Ukraine.” Musk tweeted back later that day,
collapsing a regulatory process that can take months or years into under 280 characters.
Starlink, up and running since 2021, is a global satellite internet provider
owned by Musk’s company SpaceX, which aims to provide low latency, high speed internet
to areas that are less densely populated and where fast reliable internet may be lacking.
The first obstacle is that Ukranians can’t just connect directly to Starlink satellites:
First, they need ground terminals.
“…terminals en route,” was how Musk finished his tweet, and less than 48 hours later Fedorov
replied with a picture showing a truckload of them in Ukraine, “Starlink — here. Thanks, Elon Musk”
Those terminals will need to be brought into cities under siege, and connected to wi-fi,
in turn allowing Ukranians to connect their devices.
And if terminals lose power, they’ll need batteries or generators to stay online.
But if the terminals can be installed and maintained,
Starlink could provide a digital lifeline to some Ukranians.
Divorcing the online world from geography and placing it outside
state control is in keeping with the internet's original promise.
The dream of the internet was one of complete deterritorialization. Internet was supposed to
mean that it doesn't matter where you live. You are connected to all of humanity
through this completely transparent network that where geography is irrelevant. We've seen
how far short of that we have fallen. We've seen some governments censor the internet
Eli Dourado is a senior research fellow at the Center for Growth and Opportunity.
I think a great outcome for the internet would have been for the U.S. to be able to export the
First Amendment to the entire planet, to be able to say, well, if you're a company
that is based in the U.S. and you're serving the entire planet and you're subject to U.S. law alone,
then the First Amendment applies everywhere and nobody can, can stop you from speaking freely.
In reality it hasn't worked out that way. The internet is largely tied to the politics and geography of earth.
Can Starlink help make good on the internet’s original promise to be a tool of liberation?
Imagine if Putin had to answer to a populace with immutable Internet access. Where they
could see the unvarnished reality of war. How might that change the way a conflict plays out?
One of Starlink’s key innovations is that the signal can be relayed laterally a number of times,
across country borders, time zones, even oceans, before beaming back down to a ground station.
That could make it harder for any one country to censor or track what its citizens access online.
But only if Starlink first turns on service in those places and then
routes internet traffic through ground stations in neighboring countries..
Starlink is, uh, you know, of course, a commercial offering from an American company
that's launching frequently into space under the outer space treaty, the United
States government is ultimately responsible for what SpaceX does when it's in space.
While the technology would allow for it, Starlink may not turn out to serve that grand purpose.
So far, it’s only available in countries that welcome its presence.
But the technology holds promise .
Satellite internet might one day offer an uncensored alternative
for people living in hermit kingdoms, behind
great firewalls, or on information islands.
And Everyday Ukranians are putting truth to power. Coordinating their
defense. Appealing directly to Russian kinship and a common humanity. Rallying people to their cause.
Showing the devastating cost of war. Starlink could help them to prevail in that battle.