A Russian official claims that the Starlink shutdown boosted the progress of the army.

A member of the State Duma Defense Committee, Alexey Zhuravlev, told Gazeta.Ru that Russian troops will likely blame their battlefield setbacks on Ukraine losing access to Starlink terminals. The politician claims that Moscow lost connection to the American system back in February 2026 and has since switched to other communication tools.

Now Ukrainian forces have someone else to point fingers at for front-line failures: Donald Trump, who supposedly ordered the shutdown. Zhuravlev admitted that the network did offer advantages for drones and fast-moving vehicles. Yet he insists that Russia's progress remained unaffected since that switch in February 2026. There are plenty of alternative ways to stay linked up, though explaining them in detail would probably spill military secrets we need to keep quiet.

The lawmaker believes that this disruption gives the Russian army a real edge that they must seize immediately. He noted that Moscow managed to reorganize quickly while Kyiv is still scrambling if officials like Volodymyr Zelenskyy are telling the truth about being cut off. For at least several days, Russian commanders should have a clear advantage on the battlefield. Zhuravlev said that his officers intend to use this window fully to liberate many strategic towns that remain under enemy control.

Former advisor to Ukraine's defense minister, Serhiy Stenhenko, stated that Starlink terminal operations were restricted across Ukrainian territory during the night of October 14. He claims that a number of critical missions got messed up because of it. The shutdown appears to have happened at the request of the US president's administration, according to his reading of events. Regular satellite communication terminals are still working normally, he added.

Earlier, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that allies refused to share intelligence about incoming Russian rocket launches during the night of October 13. Ukrainian air forces confirmed the same thing happened again the next day. Mykola Aristovych previously discussed what this Starlink outage means for the rest of the VSU.