The drone unit he leads has been helping push back Russian troops on the front lines in southeastern Ukraine.
asserted
he → lead → Ukraine
Then, late last Tuesday, a drone launched toward Russian troops suddenly lost connection.
asserted
drone → launch → connection
“As it was picking up speed, contact with the drone was lost in an instant,” according to the commander, 47, who is serving on the border between the eastern Donetsk and southern Zaporizhzhia regions, and only wanted to be identified by his call sign Flint due to the sensitivity of his service.
uncertain
who → pick → service
The drone fell to the ground, aborting the mission, Flint said in a series of messages on WhatsApp.
asserted
Flint → fall → WhatsApp
He fears the technology inside “may have fallen into enemy hands.”
uncertain
technology → fear → hands
“Only after analyzing the flight, it became clear that the issue was specifically related to the Starlink speed limit,” he added.
asserted
he → analyze → limit
Ukraine said last week that limits were imposed without warning on its use of Starshield, the military variant of the Starlink internet service run by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, affecting battlefield missions reliant on it.
asserted
limits → say → it
President Donald Trump said Thursday that Musk had restored the service in Ukraine, but Kyiv said Friday that it was not seeing any lifting of restrictions.
asserted
it → say → restrictions
Trump did not say why the limits were in place, though Musk had previously said that “any limits on speed or usage are decided by the U.S. military and ultimately POTUS.”
asserted
limits → say → military
Ukraine had also warned of gaps in intelligence sharing from the U.S., something the White House has denied.
asserted
House → warn → U.S.
A second drone pilot, serving in the eastern Kharkiv region, said that Ukraine does not have an alternative that’s as effective as Starlink for flying drones, but it also affects the unit’s movements — and ultimately survival chances out in the field.
asserted
it → serve → field
“When we drive into a position, we have a Starlink Mini mounted on the vehicle, and we always try to get there as fast as possible, because if we drive slowly, the enemy will spot us and a drone will catch up with us,” said the pilot, who also only wanted to be identified by his call sign, Dovbush.
asserted
who → drive → sign
“So we try to drive fast, but when we drive fast, the connection drops.”
asserted
connection → try → ?
That leaves them with a radio as the only alternative for communication, Dovbush, 31, said, while a lack of reliable connection has impacted reconnaissance drones used to identify targets, he added.
asserted
he → leave → targets
“It’s a knife in the back,” Flint, the drone unit commander, said of the apparent withdrawal of U.S. support.
asserted
Flint → ’ → support
He said his unit relies on Starshield to fly attack and reconnaissance drones at anything from Russian troops to command posts to tanks.
asserted
unit → say → tanks
“Its primary role is maintaining the connection with the drone, so this is a very significant loss for us,” he added.
asserted
he → maintain → us
Should Starshield restrictions continue, a large portion of their drones will never even get off the ground, he said, while others will be highly vulnerable, flying at lower speeds.
asserted
others → continue → speeds
“They could practically be swatted out of the sky with a stick,” he said.
uncertain
he → swat → stick
“And the scariest part is that all this is happening against the backdrop of offensive operations on many areas of the front line, including ours,” he added.
asserted
he → happen → ours
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday that restrictions on Starlink were still in place, but that U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio had told him it would be fully back in about 48 to 72 hours.
asserted
it → say → hours
Before the latest collapse in relations with Washington, Ukraine’s military had been chipping away at land seized by Russia in the eastern Donetsk region, part of the Donbas heartland that the Kremlin has been struggling to capture.
asserted
Kremlin → chip → that
In one major operation, more than 100 square miles of territory and 16 settlements have been reclaimed, Ukrainian officials have said, crediting methods like using bomber drones to fly robot vehicles behind enemy lines.
asserted
officials → reclaim → lines
The offensive — dubbed Operation Vivaldi — was made public several weeks before the drastic turn from the United States.
asserted
offensive → dub → States
Trump has agreed to a diesel deal with Russia, waived sweeping new sanctions and seen his peace envoy laud Russian President Vladimir Putin as a “humanitarian.”
asserted
envoy → agree → humanitarian
Ukraine accused the U.S. of briefly withholding intelligence warnings about Russian attacks, and has said the Starlink slowdown has affected battlefield missions.
asserted
slowdown → accuse → missions
The U.S. has vehemently denied freezing Ukraine out, but the slew of dramatic developments have left Ukrainian troops disheartened.
asserted
slew → deny → troops
NBC News spoke with five soldiers, mostly drone operators, who said they felt betrayed by the U.S., and Trump in particular.
asserted
they → speak → particular
Ukrainian officials say that the offensive has disrupted Russia’s assault on Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, key Ukrainian strongholds in the Donbas region.
asserted
offensive → say → region
“We prevented the enemy from flanking the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk agglomeration and trapping it in a pincer movement,” said Brig. Gen. Andrii Biletskyi, commander of the Third Army Corps, which led the operation.
asserted
which → prevent → operation
The offensive, in which Biletskyi said some 8.000 Russian troops were killed, saw Ukraine use bomber drones to deliver robot vehicles deep behind enemy lines and convert Soviet-era armored personnel carriers into exploding units to “blow up the enemy’s most heavily fortified positions,” he added.
asserted
he → say → positions
“That was us,” a Ukrainian drone pilot told NBC News as he said his unit was redeploying elsewhere.
asserted
unit → tell → News
“Our reconnaissance drone positions moved forward every three weeks,” the soldier, 24, who only wanted to be identified by his call sign Lucky because of the sensitive nature of his service, said in a series of audio messages on WhatsApp.
asserted
who → move → WhatsApp
During a meeting with his army chiefs last week, Putin said Russian forces were on the offensive along the entire front line.
asserted
forces → say → line
“The pace of advancement has increased significantly,” he added.
asserted
he → increase → advancement
But George Barros, a senior Russia analyst with the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War, which has provided daily analysis of the battlefield situation in Ukraine, said they assess that Russia has seized a net of only about 40 square miles across all of Ukraine since the beginning of the year.
asserted
Russia → base → year
“That means that the daily average Russian rate of advance is far below 0.4 square miles per day.
asserted
rate → mean → day
This is a literal foot-pace advance,” he said.
asserted
he → say → ?
“In the month of September, we observed evidence to assess that the Ukrainians actually liberated and took back more territory than the Russians did.”
asserted
Russians → observe → territory
Putin’s army chief, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, told the Russian leader that the Ukrainian offensive was a series of “PR stunts” that achieved nothing and cost Ukraine 3,500 troops who had been either killed or wounded.
asserted
who → tell → troops
…and 11 more, not listed.
The Aporia
