Starlink Whitelist Move May Hit Russian Drone Ops (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Russia might have been hobbled on the Ukraine front lines by an unlikely adversary, Elon Musk. Now, both sides in the war have been using Musk's Starlink satellite internet system to communicate for many months now. It's vital to flying drones for communicating along the front line. But just in recent weeks, Russia started mounting Starlink dishes on its drones, giving them longer, deadlier range inside Ukraine. Now, that seems to have sparked Elon Musk into doing something Ukraine's been wanting him to do for months. And that's basically demand that every device in Ukraine is registered. And Ukraine's quickly created a white list for its military to be sure its devices still function. But Russia can't get on that list. And there are now reports from Russian military bloggers that it's having a real impact on their devices on the front lines. They're scrabbling desperately for alternatives. But it means, at the worst, it can't fly its drones. It can't communicate between distant outposts. Now, it's early to tell. But this could have a massive impact on Russia's war effort, certainly an immediate scramble to find alternatives. Ukraine's saying it's knocked every Russian device out too early to tell. But ultimately, the question is, why now? Is it because of the faltering peace talks in Abu Dhabi that Elon Musk is suddenly now getting involved in something he stayed out of? Is it some kind of leverage? Or is the timing just coincidence?