Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) said on 10 August 2026 that it had detained three more people suspected of illegally registering Starlink satellite terminals for Russian forces, and had blocked two separate schemes for putting hostile terminals onto Ukraine's verification list.

The arrests are the latest in a months-long pattern. After Ukraine and SpaceX cut off smuggled Starlink terminals and required every device to be verified, the SBU says, Russia turned to paying financially desperate Ukrainians to register hostile terminals under real Ukrainian identities, laundering them onto the whitelist meant to keep them out. Each case the service has announced follows the same script: a recruit found through Telegram, a terminal signed up in their own name, then pressure to pull in others.

In Dnipro, according to the service, counterintelligence exposed a woman who had done Russia's bidding in exchange for money to buy drugs. She registered one terminal in her own name, the SBU said, then drew in acquaintances, also looking for money for a "dose," to register more.

In Zhytomyr, according to the service, a local unemployed woman registered one terminal in her own name, then brought in a male acquaintance, and the two moved to what the SBU called "serial" activation at post offices, using front persons who handed over their personal data for a cut of the payment.

The SBU described all three suspects as drug-dependent people who had gone looking for quick money in Telegram channels, the same recruitment funnel it has flagged in earlier cases. The service said it had documented the suspects' activity, detained them at their homes, and blocked every terminal registered through the two schemes.

Investigators served the three with notices of suspicion under two articles of Ukraine's Criminal Code: Article 114-1, obstructing the lawful activity of the Armed Forces and other military formations during a special period, applied together with the prior-conspiracy provision of Article 28, and Article 111-2, aiding the aggressor state. The SBU said the suspects face eight to 12 years in prison. These are allegations, and none of the three has been convicted.

The SBU's regional directorates in Dnipropetrovsk and Zhytomyr oblasts ran the operations with the National Police, overseen by the regional prosecutors.

In February, the SBU detained a couple in Odesa Oblast who, it said, had agreed to register terminals for Russia at $30 each and planned to pull in a local resident who uses drugs to help.

In late June, the service reported eight suspected agents who registered terminals in their own names, passed the credentials to Russian handlers, and were told to recruit as many additional people as possible.

On 24 July, the SBU said it had broken up a network in Kyiv that used fake Ukrainian passports and an unwitting postal worker to activate 76 terminals for Russia's FSB security service, a case that drew high treason charges under martial law and the threat of life imprisonment.

On 25 July, the service detained a man in Dnipro suspected of registering more than 1,000 terminals, the largest single scheme reported so far.

Why Starlink matters

Starlink, operated by SpaceX, has become one of the most important communications systems on the modern battlefield, providing fast, reliable satellite internet that is difficult to jam.

Ukraine has relied extensively on the network throughout Russia's full-scale invasion to maintain communications between military units and support drone operations.

Russian forces have also sought access to the system, but their use has been significantly constrained. In cooperation with SpaceX, Ukraine has introduced verification measures and whitelisted legitimate users operating on Ukrainian territory, limiting Russian access and forcing Moscow to seek alternative communications systems.

Fedir's four and a half years compress a shift the Ukrainian military has been living through since the invasion. Ukraine's forces have moved from Soviet-era systems, through Western precision weapons, to a homegrown drone war that now shapes the front line more than any single piece of hardware. Soldiers have had to relearn their job every year, mastering whatever technology arrives next, because the side that adapts faster survives. Fedir's story shows how fast that reinvention has come, and what it costs the people carrying it out.

"We give battle, boys — this is war," battalion commander Mykhailo Myronenko told the men. Fedir, a former construction worker, was on combat duty with a Lviv air defense brigade, and his job was diesel: keeping the generators running so the S-300 launchers never lost power. On the busiest days, he says, the unit fired eight to ten times.

In 2024, the war upgraded around him. He retrained on the IRIS-T SLS, a German air defense system, and moved from generators to the launch itself. "Three missiles. Three targets down," he says of his first launches on Western hardware.

"I was standing in snow mixed with mud, and I understood I was really useful to my Ukraine," said Fedir.

Then he left. The IRIS-T sits well back from the front, and Fedir gave it up to fly drones, because he wanted to see the results of his work up close, through his own camera rather than on someone else's screen. He flew his first missions in Sumy Oblast, moving onto position in the dark with the headlights off. Through the camera, he saw his first Russian soldier walking a trench.

Drone operators are the eyes of the front, and among the most hunted people on it for exactly that reason. The task that matters most, he says, comes after the flight: not bringing a "tail" home, not letting an enemy drone track the path back to your shelter. One day, he says, it went wrong. A Russian FPV drone found their group, a comrade made cover shouting "FPV," and the blast was followed by artillery meant to finish them off. Fedir took a serious concussion, spent a few days in a hospital, and went back. "I was desperate to return. Because this is my war," he said.

The callsign came by chance, from the work. When the jamming is heaviest, and he is fighting to hold the link to his drone against Russian electronic warfare, he starts to move at the controls, a small involuntary dance. His comrades named him Dancer.

His rotation has ended, and he could go back to the IRIS-T. He has chosen to stay on the zero line. After the war, he says, he wants the ordinary things: a family, and the peace to build again.