A Wall Street Journal report said SpaceX CEO Elon Musk ordered the Starlink throttling that blindsided Ukraine's air assault forces last week, despite Musk's claim that all decisions on the military version of Starlink are made by the US military and President Trump.

Trump denied ordering the restrictions. While Musk may have spoken to Trump and administration officials before the decision, The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that Musk made the final call. The decision came after both Musk and Trump criticized Ukraine for attacking Russian diesel refineries.

"Elon Musk ordered the slowdown of a military-grade version of Starlink relied on by Ukraine, a decision that sparked panic in Kyiv and confusion inside the Trump administration," the WSJ wrote, citing unnamed US officials and people familiar with the matter. The report said that "Musk capped the speeds at which Ukrainian hardware could stay connected to the satellite-based network... rendering some offensive drones and interceptor drones virtually useless."

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U.S. assistance remains essential to Ukraine’s defence against Russian ballistic missile attacks. This is a difficult reality for

Russia attacks Ukraine almost every night with large waves of Geran drones. These drones are not particularly difficult

The war in Ukraine has been described as a war of drones for a long time now. It

Ukraine’s unprecedented drone rescue of a wounded soldier from the battlefield has shown once again how battlefield necessity can spur innovation. The operation was revealed just days after separate Ukrainian drones designed for casualty evacuation were deployed for frontline testing—taking a step beyond the US military’s decades of experimentation with similar concepts.

The drone evacuation of the injured soldier took place at an undisclosed time and place on the frontline where the presence of Russian drones and landmines made it impractical to send in a wheeled ground robot, according to The Kyiv Independent. On October 19, Ukraine’s Army shared a video of the drone evacuation, showing the wounded soldier securing himself in a harness suspended beneath a heavy hexacopter drone with six rotors before being flown to safety.

“This is a historic event, the next stage of evacuating the wounded, which we will all come to,” said Napalm, a programmer of the 92nd separate assault brigade's unmanned ground systems company, who went by his callsign per Ukrainian military practice, in a statement. “Now the serious systematic work begins, so that such missions are carried out constantly.”

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© 92nd Separate Assault Brigade of the Ukrainian Ground Forces

In a reported world first, a modified military drone carried a wounded soldier to safety.

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As SpaceX impacts Ukraine and AI-generated music divides artists and fans, critics are asking what happens when technology has too much control over our lives

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Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m Blake Montgomery, US tech editor at the Guardian, writing to you while sitting in front of Roy Lichtenstein’s monumental Drowning Girl, on view in New York City. Today in tech, we’re discussing the perils of Elon Musk’s one-man global infrastructure, AI-generated music and a Guardian AI conference in Paris.

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© Photograph: Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters

© Photograph: Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters

© Photograph: Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters

Although Kosmos 2612 is now backing away, the maneuver raised alarm bells for analysts who see it as part of a pattern of Russian aggression.

Russian drones are suspected of sinking a cargo ship and leaving chemical tankers ablaze near the Black Sea coasts of Bulgaria and Romania, respectively. The latest attacks mean that at least seven ships have been attacked in the exclusive economic zones of NATO member countries—and even within Romania's territorial waters if Russian involvement is confirmed in the case of the chemical tankers.

Such attacks have spurred requests for NATO to redeploy counter-drone systems to provide more protection. In a social media post on October 15, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte stated that NATO had increased "counter-drone capabilities" along the alliance's eastern flank after meeting with the leaders of Bulgaria and Romania.

The latest attacks this week occurred within 24 hours between October 14 and October 15, when the two chemical tankers were set afire after Russian drones were detected in Romanian airspace, according to Deutsche Welle. Both ships were sitting at anchor near the mouth of the Sulina canal that connects the Black Sea to the Danube River, which has become a crucial shipping export route for Ukraine, Reuters reported.

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When Russia began attacking Ukrainian data centers and telecommunication infrastructure, it apparently failed to prepare for possible retaliation. Now Russia’s digital services are facing widespread outages after Ukrainian drone strikes knocked out three of the largest data centers owned by Russian tech giant Yandex within several days.

Pro-Kremlin bloggers are warning that Russia’s centralized digital economy could collapse because the country is not prepared for the “data center war” it started, according to posts translated by the pseudonymous independent researcher ChrisO_wiki. The Russian commentators also suggested that Ukraine’s decentralized digital services could prove more resilient than Russia’s system if the countries continue trading such blows.

Russia initially launched a drone strike campaign targeting Ukrainian data centers and mobile phone networks in late September. The attacks temporarily disrupted Internet and cell phone service for up to 100,000 households in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv and came as part of a broader long-range strike campaign that has involved Russian missiles and jet-powered drones hitting Ukraine’s power grid infrastructure, transportation hubs, and even residential apartment building blocks.

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© Igor IVANKO / AFP via Getty Images

Russia is constantly targeting Ukrainian energy infrastructure. It is quite obvious that they have a goal of drowning

President Trump recently blamed Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries for causing a spike in diesel prices, but analysts say the Iran war is probably a bigger factor.

© Jeff Chiu/Associated Press

La guerre des drones franchit une nouvelle étape et cela se passe en mer. En mer Noire, un drone naval ukrainien a détruit son adversaire russe lors de ce qui est présenté comme le premier duel entre deux « bâtiments sans équipage ». Une scène qui pourrait préfigurer les combats navals de...

Recently, operators from the Department of Active Operations and the Department of Unmanned Systems of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine carried out a joint deep-strike operation with the Ukrainian Defence Forces, during which another oil refinery on Russian territory was struck. The refinery in question is ‘Slavyansk-ECO’, located in […]

The post Successful Deep-Strike Operation: Defense Intelligence of Ukraine and Defense Forces Hit Another Russian Oil Refinery appeared first on AERONAUT.media.

The Ukrainian Defense Forces struck the Volgogradpromproekt facility in the Russian city of Volgograd during the night of September 11. Ukraine used FP-5 Flamingo cruise missiles in the attack. This was reported by Fire Point on its Telegram channel. The Flamingo cruise missiles successfully reached their intended target. The Dnipro OSINT community reported on Telegram […]

The post Ukrainian FP-5 Flamingo Missiles Strike Sanctioned Chemical Plant in Volgograd appeared first on AERONAUT.media.

Satellite imagery and new data reveal the aftermath of the recent strike on Novorossiysk. As a reminder, during the night of September 9, Ukraine’s Defense Forces – including the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), Unmanned Systems Forces, Ukrainian Navy, the GUR Defense Intelligence active operations department, and the State Border Guard Service – attacked a […]

The post Ukrainian Drones Strike Kalibr Carriers: What New Images of the Novorossiysk Base Reveal appeared first on AERONAUT.media.

Specialists from Ukraine’s Defence Intelligence Directorate (DIU) conducted a cyberspace operation targeting the aggressor state of Russia, during which they obtained a large dataset containing information on the structure, existing and planned developments, management, and employees of the Moscow Institute of Heat Technology (MIT) corporation. The MIT corporation includes, among others, the Prozhектор Design Bureau, […]

The post Ukrainian military intelligence hacked a corporation that develops missile designs and components: Data on 2,648 employees revealed appeared first on AERONAUT.media.

Germany’s Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul has argued that Ukraine should purchase more weapons from the German defence industry.

The Main Directorate of Intelligence of Ukraine (HUR) reports that Russia’s 101st Missile Brigade, equipped with the Oreshnik

The United Kingdom has allocated £100 million ($135.1 million) for a new winter air defense package for Ukraine. According to a press release from the UK Ministry of Defence, the package includes Patriot missiles. As part of the joint PURL (Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List) initiative, the UK will provide air defense interceptor missiles, large-caliber artillery […]

The post UK prepares a $135.1 million winter air defense package for Ukraine, including Patriot missiles and drones appeared first on AERONAUT.media.