President UK Air & Space Power Association. Podcaster. RUSI Distinguished Fellow. Former RAF Senior Commander. All views are strictly in a personal capacity.
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Joined February 2016
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Listen to @seanbellanalyst and I discuss the wider implications of what SpaceX has been getting up to in Ukraine.
Who do we trust with critical capabilities?
In our new episode of "The High Ground", @GregBagwell & @seanbellanalyst discuss Ukraine, SpaceX and the implications of relying on allies and commercial providers for sovereignty, NATO and #UKdefence.
youtu.be/KKAGyDlQjmE
Did Musk get a quiet word from Putin? It would go some way to explain his sudden change of position on Ukraine.
Greg Bagwell retweeted
🇺🇦 🇷🇺 Zelensky on the Witkoff paper Putin got: no neutrality, no cap on the army, and "we are not exchanging anything for anything," as Medvedev tells Trump to have the CIA "deal with" him
Volodymyr Zelensky used a Sunday night television interview to tell Washington what Kyiv will not sign. Asked by Alla Mazur of TSN's weekly show about the document US envoy Steve Witkoff carried to Vladimir Putin after the Oslo talks, Zelensky said it contains "various" American proposals, including on Ukraine's security. Two items are off the table, he said: neutrality and limits on the size of Ukraine's army. "Our security guarantees are our security guarantees, they cannot be dictated by the Russian side," he said.
He was blunt about land. "The Americans have long been raising the issue of exchanging territories; they call it land swaps," Zelensky said. "We are not exchanging anything for anything. We are ready for discussion. If it is a territorial issue, then it should be handled at the leaders' level. Other issues should be handled at the level of technical groups." He said all of it can be discussed in November, when US, Ukrainian and Russian teams are expected to meet, possibly in Abu Dhabi.
UATV reports he wants that round to produce an energy truce or a Black Sea ceasefire, safe grain exports and an all-for-all prisoner exchange, and that he does not want all sanctions on Russia lifted before a leaders' meeting. He also put Ukraine's 2027 funding need at 115 billion euros.
Moscow's tone was harsher. Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council and a former president, posted on the Russian platform Max that Trump should summon "the secretary of war and the CIA director" and have them resolve the Zelensky problem, adding that "the method, place, and means do not matter". The Daily Mail renders the line as "take care of this 'unfortunate little problem.'"
Medvedev, who has no authority over US agencies, called Zelensky a "parasite" and claimed he harms Trump's interests more than Venezuela, Cuba and Iran combined. Earlier Sunday, Putin aide Yuri Ushakov told state TV that Moscow is ready to return to three-way talks after Russia's Nov. 4 holiday, calling the first meeting a "trial run," the Kyiv Independent reported.
The interview is the clearest public account yet of where the Witkoff track snags. Washington keeps floating land swaps, Kyiv says only presidents can trade territory, and Moscow wants a deal it can close with Trump directly. Zelensky's ask for November is narrow and concrete: energy, the Black Sea, grain and prisoners. Medvedev's post shows how hard the Kremlin is working to drive a wedge between Trump and Zelensky in the weeks before the midterms and the talks.
📹 @Gianl1974
Greg Bagwell retweeted
This photo shows a simple built-in WiFi router in the Mini terminal.
The whole thread you referred to contains photos of the *WiFi router* boards.
This simple WiFi router board has nothing to do with how the Starlink terminal operates. The Starlink terminal will operate perfectly fine without this board. It's just a separate device, a WiFi router.
I even have an article about this: olegkutkov.me/2025/06/15/how…
The whole thread is technically nonsense.
Nothing to see here… right? Right……?
BREAKING: SpaceX $SPCX has secured access to some of the Pentagon’s most precise satellite-tracking data, giving its Starlink network new capabilities for monitoring spacecraft and collision risks in orbit.
First reported by Breaking Defense and examined in new reporting by The Guardian, the agreement allows SpaceX to access portions of the U.S. military’s High Accuracy Catalog.
In exchange, SpaceX provides tracking observations from Stargaze, a network of sensors aboard its approximately 11,000 Starlink satellites.
The military data includes detailed estimates of orbital trajectories and potential collision risks, improving the ability to monitor objects that could threaten spacecraft.
The arrangement has raised concerns among competing space-surveillance companies about SpaceX gaining a privileged position in the market for orbital tracking services.
The Space Force says the data is controlled but unclassified, that access is restricted, and that it is pursuing similar exchanges with other commercial providers.
The agreement underscores how SpaceX’s rapidly expanding satellite infrastructure is becoming increasingly integrated with U.S. military space operations.
Greg Bagwell retweeted
Our conversation with the American side in Oslo was accompanied by three challenges. These were the shortage of air defense, restrictions on Starlink/Starshield, and restrictions on intelligence sharing from the United States of America. I am grateful to the Americans and our team that two of these issues – intelligence and Starlink/Starshield – have been resolved as of today.
The issue of air defense remains. There is progress on missiles for Patriot systems, but things are moving very slowly. More slowly than Russian missiles fly. You cannot say, “Yes, we will give the missiles to you,” and then not deliver them for a month or two. It simply does not work that way.
From an interview with Alla Mazur for TSN Week on 1+1, as part of the United News telethon. (1/5)
Greg Bagwell retweeted
Putin tries very hard to convince the world that he is winning. Yet, according to ISW, Russian forces have made a net gain of only 73 square kilometers (slightly larger than Manhattan) in Ukraine since the start of 2026, while suffering more than 40,000 casualties a month since July. Since September 1, they have lost a net 240 square kilometers. The losses are staggering for such meager territorial gains. Ukraine has effectively arrested Russia’s advance and begun to reverse some of its recent gains. Ukraine needs our help now more than ever.
Despite this, Trump and many in MAGA are convinced Ukraine is losing. Putin’s propaganda is, unfortunately, working on this administration.
MORE: Putin is trying once again to breathe life into the myth of inevitable Russian military victory in order to persuade the United States and other supporters of Ukraine to compel Kyiv to surrender. Putin constantly asserts that Russian forces are making gains along the entire frontline. He makes claims of territorial gains so far from reality as to be fantasy. He hearkens back to the Soviet Union and the Red Army to evoke images of Soviet hordes overrunning the German Wehrmacht. But these claims, images, and maps of supposed Russian gains are all fictional. Reality is quite the opposite.
As his cover story for the recent Starlink/Starshield dispute, Musk is desperate to be seen as a humanitarian (like Putin!). Indeed, he hates war so much that he has $8bn dollars in Pentagon contracts and has joined Pete Hegseth’s Project Meridian to look at the future of war. 🤔
You will see posts like this being widely disseminated on X, they, more often than not, will originate from an actual Russian or a Russian located poster. It has been widely debunked by even Grok (see reply). Expect a random picture of a Starlink circuit board to accompany it.
𝗪𝗛𝗔𝗧 𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗟𝗟𝗬 𝗛𝗔𝗣𝗣𝗘𝗡𝗘𝗗 𝗧𝗢 𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗥𝗟𝗜𝗡𝗞 𝗜𝗡 𝗨𝗞𝗥𝗔𝗜𝗡𝗘
Ukraine has always used only civilian Starlink services: the basic plan ($100), the commercial in-motion plan ($400), and the priority command-post plan ($2,000–4,000). Aviation plans cost up to $1K, $20K, or $100K+, but they are unavailable in Ukraine.
Under heavy demand, the network became overloaded. SpaceX had to keep prices high for the military to build excess ground-station capacity around Ukraine and minimise signal latency. These are the very sites with antenna domes that recently began to be set on fire in attacks allegedly ordered through the dark web.
The main problem Ukrainian forces faced at the front was Russian electronic warfare (EW). GPS signal jamming caused civilian Starlink chips to freeze, while spoofed location data could trigger terminal lockouts.
The solution was a GPS hack board. Engineers soldered it inside the terminal to manually set the desired coordinates. These boards also made it possible to bypass Musk’s geographic restrictions.
For a long time, Starlink did not work in the grey zone under Russian control. But entering the coordinates of a neighbouring Ukrainian region restored the connection. Russian forces also exploited this loophole until Starlink introduced exclusive whitelists for the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) only.
By 2025, Musk began tightening restrictions and reducing speed limits for commercial plans. But Ukrainian military engineers discovered a loophole: technically, the satellite-terminal communication session was not rigidly tied to GPS. The protection existed only within the terminal module itself.
If the terminal was made to believe through the hack board that it was stationary, it would send its own radio request to the satellite and receive the necessary session data. There are now around 10,000 satellites, and the signal could be picked up even with a separation of more than 150 km. The drone could fly over Russian territory while Starlink’s servers believed it was stationary.
This was a major Ukrainian secret. Before being sent to the front, the casings of new Starlink terminals were routinely opened to install GPS hacks and sturdy, waterproof connectors. This allowed drones to fly at high speeds while using an ordinary subscription.
In early 2026, Musk reduced the commercial plan’s speed limit to 160 km/h worldwide. That is slower than many basic UAVs can fly with a tailwind. But because GPS hack boards were so widely used in Ukraine, nobody noticed. The terminals reported that they were supposedly stationary.
IN LATE 2026, SPACEX RESPONDED HARSHLY. A server-side check was introduced: if a terminal’s GPS indicated that it was stationary but it switched between satellites too quickly—revealing an actual speed above 160 km/h—the server would immediately terminate the connection.
The GPS hack stopped working. Ukrainian forces began experiencing problems with long-range UAVs. Flights now have to be planned carefully to avoid exceeding the 160 km/h limit. Funding for aviation plans is not always available, and SpaceX does not sell them for what it considers offensive uses.
Against this backdrop, Zelensky is trying to obtain unrestricted access to Starshield—the US military version of Starlink—to enable flights over Russia. But Trump, Musk and the Pentagon are refusing him. Ukraine has portrayed the restrictions as a political blockade while omitting the fact that the Starlink speed limit has reportedly been in place for almost a year.
A behind-the-scenes back-and-forth is now underway: Musk says he has not changed anything in recent days, while Rubio states that Starshield is unavailable to Ukraine. The result: Starlink is gradually being restricted to vehicle-based and stationary use. The workaround no longer works.
Whether the speed check has been disabled or access to specialised aviation plans has been granted remains unclear. The outage affected a narrow segment of drones...
grok’s take…
@grok where did the theory that Ukraine modified Starlink circuits to spoof GPS signals on location and speed emanate from, and have they been proven?
Greg Bagwell retweeted
Did @spaceX forget their own Starlink TOS?
What do things on the USML covered by International Traffic in Arms Regulations do?
Paint petunias?
Buď teda Ukrajinci dokázali nějak hacknout systémy SpaceX a používat civilní antény Starlink za pohybu, nebo je Musk lže.
Takže:
1. Rusové od loňského roku načerno nakupovali Starlinky všude možně po světě, ty pak nasazovali na Ukrajině.
2. Problém začal řešit tehdejší ministr obrany Fedorov a jeho tým. Řešením byly bílé seznamy (whitelists), kdy pouze oficiálně registrované terminály mohly být zprovozněny nad území Ukrajiny (kontrolované Ukrajinu nebo okupované Ruskem).
3. Povolené civilní terminály fungují pouze ve stacionárním režimu nebo za velmi nízké rychlosti pohybu (do 90 km/h).
4. Registrovat terminály museli jak vojáci (přes Delta nebo Armija+), firmy a státní zaměstnanci přes portál Dia, civilisté a podnikatelé přes CNAP. Registrovalo se KIT číslo, UTID a číslo účtu.
5. Registrace byla spuštěna 5. února 2026.
A teď to podstatné (a zopakuji to znovu)
Ukrajinští vojáci pro terminály, které se využívají na mobilní cíle ve vysoké rychlosti (typické middle strike drony při zrychlení z rampy nebo třeba drony interceptory), používají službu Starshield.
To je služba, o které Musk říká, že ji kontroluje americká vláda (a všimněte si, že už nepíše, že ji vlastní). Jde o využití stejné konstelace satelitů Starlink, ale s lepším šifrováním, přístupy a tak dále.
Zde je důležité, že za tuto službu neplatí americká vláda, ale vláda německá skrze FMS (Foreign Military Sales, což je proces, přes který Amerika prodává své zbraně, například Patrioty). Ta platí tuto službu do půlky května příštího roku.
Co se omezila, je služba Starshield, tj. terminální na mobilních cílech. Nejde tu teď momentálně o stacionární Starlink, který funguje právě na principech těch bílých seznamů. Proto se Němci ozvali. Proto se Ukrajinci ozvali. Proto si Musk, Rubio, Trump a další přehazují zodpovědnost a matou společnost.
Důvodem není jen to, že v rámci americké společnosti nechtějí ztratit zbytky kreditu, ale taky to, že se vysílá vzkaz spojencům, kterým říkají, že pokud na postu amerického prezidenta bude člověk, který chce lízat ruskou/čínskou/severokorejskou či jakoukoli jinou podrážku, může mechanismus FMS s odůvodněním "národního zájmu" podělat.
A tenhle signál je mnohem horší, protože se Evropané (a vlastně kdokoli, kdo se u Američanů rozhodne nakupovat přes FMS, nebo jiný mechanismus, přes který není možné domáhat se právní ochrany u soudu/arbitráže) budou naprosto legitimně ptát, co všechno v sobě obsahuje kill switch a jak moc jsme schopní nahrazovat americké know how tím svým?
Proto Musk bulí, když Evropané mluví o předělovaní frekvencí pouze pro evropské společnosti. Proto američtí technologičtí giganti jsou nervózní. A proto budou mít problém i americké zbrojovky, které mají díky válce v Evropě žně (nákupy z Evropy jsou největší za desítky let a po 20 letech jsme největšími odběrateli amerických zbraní).
Trump si neuvědomuje, jak velký geopolitický průšvih za sebou zanechá, pro nějakou zdánlivou výhodu, kterou mu momentálně Putin nabízí. Ať už to 300 000 tun nafty, stavba infrastruktury ruskými společnosti pro Aljašku, nebo nějaké shady kontakty, který má Witkoff a Kushner s Dmitrijevem.
On the surface, Musk’s compassion appears heartfelt. But if it was genuine, wouldn’t he call for Putin to end his illegal operation and do everything to protect the innocent & the invaded. I haven’t seen him say one word against Putin ever and every criticism against Zelensky.
Musk getting more desperate by the minute. Zelensky was probably keeping Starshield out of the conversation as this was posted only a few days after the stoppages and that system wasn’t well known. And if they were cheating the system he was hardly going to admit it in public.
Greg Bagwell retweeted
揭穿马斯克的谎言：
Starlink（星链）是一项民用商业服务——撒谎。 2022年2月你应乌克兰部长请求开机，2023年6月五角大楼正式签约，波兰每年5000万美元、3万台终端，星盾终端3000台走五角大楼合同，这叫民用商业服务？你家民用宽带是按战争合同收费的吗？从第一天起它就是乌克兰战时军事通信骨干，你比谁都清楚。现在出事了，突然改口说民用，是想把军事合同的责任推给"消费者条款"，合同签的时候是军事服务，担责的时候变民用服务，变脸比翻书快。
从未被允许——那为什么允许了三年半？ 乌克兰用星链打无人机是2022年就公开的事实，2023年Shotwell划过一次线，之后照样用，照样签合同，照样付钱。条款三年半不执行，偏偏在10月13日深夜执行，而10月9日川普刚和普京签了柴油协议，10月10日刚说乌克兰该换总统，10月11日刚宣布能源停火（潜台词：别再打俄炼油厂）。你的条款执行日程表，怎么和川普的政治日程表是同一张？
Starshield（星盾）由美国政府控制，他们自己决定——这句话是你自己打自己脸。 五角大楼10月21日已经公开说了，没下过限制令。政府没决定限制，限制却发生了，那决定是谁做的？华尔街日报10月21日报道，命令来自你本人。你把锅推给美国政府，美国政府说没下令，锅最后还是回到你手里。你这句话不是辩护，是自供状。
乌克兰违反服务条款——偷换了两个概念。 第一，军用终端适用的是五角大楼合同，不是家用宽带的消费者条款，你拿服务条款管战争？第二，你把它说成 进攻性无人机打击以杀死人们，拦下炸城市的无人机，叫杀人吗？叫救人。把防御说成进攻，是你整篇最阴的一招。
漏洞—— 一个公开了三年半的用途，叫漏洞？ 你三年半没发现，偏偏在柴油协议之后发现了。这不叫补漏洞，叫补政治立场。
Ultimately, this was never about a breach of contract terms - that’s a convenient cover. This was always a deliberate attempt to apply pressure on Ukraine for Trump’s political ends. And in Musk he had the perfect partner, whose own fortune is tied to Trump’s political one.
Elon Musk has attempted to close the issue with Starlink in Ukraine. But here is a tale in 7 tweets that suggests it’s far from closed. The throttling back of speed limits on Starlink terminals occurred around 14 October so let’s go back to then in his timeline. 🧵1/10
10/ The problem is that the evidence trail is way too suspicious and the story still doesn’t add up….