Connexion
Third one down: Ukraine keeps destroying Russia’s $1.8 million Starlink jammers
Satellite imagery has confirmed that Ukraine's Defense Forces destroyed a Russian electronic-warfare system built to jam Starlink at Gelendzhik in southern Russia, the Ukrainian defense outlet Militarnyi reported. Ukrainian drones hit the machine on the grounds of a Russian border-guard base during their sweep of the Black Sea coast. It is one more of these costly jammers Russia has lost, even as Ukraine's long-range drones cannot use Starlink over Russia.
Satellites caught the before and after
Satellite images published by the OSINT community Dnipro Osint show the site cleared at Gelendzhik, in Russia's Krasnodar Krai. The Volna Kupol Garant complex is gone. Researchers called it the third destruction of this jammer recorded in open sources. The strike landed on the grounds of military unit 2156, the Novorossiysk border detachment of Russia's FSB Border Service.
Ukrainian drones likely hit it alongside a 7 August strike on cargo ships near Novorossiysk and Gelendzhik. Geolocated photos from residents point to a repeat strike on the base on 8 August.
Ukraine’s newest drones don’t need Starlink. Russia spends $1.5 million to jam it anyway.
The Volna Kupol Garant is built from trailers carrying satellite antennas. It tracks a passing Starlink satellite and beams a strong signal that scrambles the terminals below across up to 20 km². Starlink is the SpaceX satellite-internet network that Ukrainian drones rely on to reach their operators. Each unit costs about $1.8 million. A same-named firm registered in occupied Simferopol builds it. The developer also makes the Volna 3M jammer that Russia has fitted to Mi-8AMTSh helicopters to block drone satellite navigation.
Ukraine has knocked out these jammers before. The 422nd Unmanned Systems Regiment, the Security Service of Ukraine's (SBU) Alpha special-operations center, and other Ukrainian units have struck such systems, including in occupied Crimea. The complex's weakness is its own power: beaming enough energy to reach a satellite makes it loud and easy to find.
And deep inside Russia, there is little Ukrainian Starlink to jam — SpaceX geofences the network to Ukrainian territory, and Elon Musk has refused Kyiv's push to use it for strikes into Russia so far.
The wider hunt
Ukraine's drone crews have spent 2026 tearing into Russia's air defenses and rear. The same run of Black Sea strikes that wrecked this jammer also burned a Russian S-400 air-defense system on the Gelendzhik coast.
