A major development seems to be underway on the Ukrainian side of the slow-moving frontline. For months now the only reason the Ukrainians have been able to hold their own against the Russians is because their access, via mobile internet, to NATO satellite data and analytical information has been allowing their artillery and rocket systems to precisely target Russian equipment and troops. This forced the Russians to act quickly: roll to a position, fire a salvo ata Ukrainian target and scoot away before that position can be targeted.
The data feed is provided by Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite internet terminals, some 20000 of them, spread out across the entire 1000km frontline. As often happens, and as I pointed out in my 2017 book Shrinking the Technosphere, often the most efficient and cost-effective form of technology is counter-technology: cheap but effective devices that turn very expensive, advanced technology into a useless heap of junk. This is precisely what is happening now thanks to the efforts of brilliant young Russian engineers and scientists working at the Sestroretsk military factory.
They have done something that the American designers of Starlink terminals thought was impossible. Their new truck-mounted system, Borschevik https://mkpborshchevik.ru/, is able to pinpoint the locations of active Starlink terminals within a 180º sector and a 10km radius to an accuracy of 5m. It is a passive system, meaning that it cannot be discovered using the signal it sends because it doesn’t send any. The truck is a small, moving target and the system does its job in two minutes if stationary and in 15 minutes if moved from point to point, targeting a maximum of 64 Starlink terminals at a time. The targeting information is then transmitted to artillery and missile batteries automatically.
So far, the results have been very positive: Borshchevik has been able to locate not just carefully camouflaged artillery emplacements but also gatherings of foreign mercenaries (who are, no doubt, internet addicts) and detachments of Ukrainian infantry (who can’t fight without NATO telling them where to go and in which direction to direct their fire). These positions were flattened then either using multiple-launch rocket systems of guided missile systems such as Krasnopol.
With the help of Borschevik, the Russian tactics will change. Whereas up until now they had to “shoot and scoot” to avoid return fire, now they’ll be able to take out all Starlink terminals in the area first, then roll up to the frontline with trucks full of ordnance and just keep firing until nothing on the Ukrainian side still moves, and only then move in with infantry, mop up and establish new positions.
Without Starlink, the Ukrainian troops will simply sit there waiting for NATO orders, not knowing where to go or where to fire and hoping for a chance to surrender. Once enough trucks with Borschevik are in place all along the front, the Ukrainians will have no choice except to keep their Starlink terminals off most of the time and just turn them on periodically to receive new orders, although by then it may be too late to carry them out or they might get targeted and destroyed before they have a chance to do so.
This is the Achilles’ heel of the American plan of attacking Russia using a proxy army of, essentially, remote-controlled puppets, and the Russians have found it and found a way to exploit it: cut its communications to NATO, and it’s pretty much over.
