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SpaceX Starlink terminals openly available on Russian website offered by Chinese drone maker DJI claiming to be an "official distributor" (www.newsweek.com)

submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

16 comments fedilink hide all child comments

The revelation follows allegations Russian forces are deploying Starlink in their invasion of Ukraine, now in its third year. DJI says it forbids distributors from selling its products in instances of suspected combat end-use. In April 2022, the tech firm announced it was temporarily suspending business in both Russia and Ukraine pending "compliance assessments."

"We can confirm that this is not an official DJI website," a company representative said when asked about the Starlink sales.

DJI said its legal team was looking into possible copyright infringement.

Representatives of the purported distributor, djirussia.ru, did not respond to a request for comment.

Starlink's Elon Musk has categorically denied Starlink sales are happening in Russia.

[Edit typo.]

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (12 children)

Starlink’s Elon Musk has categorically denied Starlink sales are happening in Russia.

Elon has denied the claims that SpaceX is selling Starlink terminals in Russia and to my knowledge no one has proven this claim wrong.

Even if you were to obtain one it simply just wouldn't work because it is not enabled there as it is not enabled in the occupied territories either, inlcuding Crimea which is why the Ukrainian attack there failed. Not because Elon disabled it, but because it wasn't enabled in the first place. This would be against the US sanctions to Russia.

If Russia was able to obtain these terminals which they obviously can do then the only place they would be able to use them is within close proximity to the front lines where they do work because otherwise Ukraine couldn't use them either. Only way to disable these Russian terminals would be to do it individually device by device.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

@Thorny_Insight @0x815
Ukraine intelligence say that they are very sure that he did. There is a video of Starlink terminals in Russian hands. I can't vouch for its authenticity.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Two things can be true at the same time; SpaceX haven't sold Starlink to Russia and Russia is using Starlink. I'm sure a country like Russia can figure out a way to obtain these terminals via 3rd parties, middlemen etc. Who knows how many they already have disabled. It would be near impossible for them to track the front lines in real time at this resolution and make sure it doesn't work on the Russian side.

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