Elon Musk flipped a switch. Now, Russia is desperately sending men up towers to die

Earlier this month, Ukraine appealed directly to Musk, asking him to disable Russian military access to SpaceX's Starlink internet system. The Russians had been running thousands of unauthorized terminals along the front — smuggled through Dubai and ex-Soviet republics, activated in countries where Starlink is legal, then shipped into the war zone.

What makes this more than a communications setback is something few outside the conflict fully grasp. Unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) are now coming to scale on both sides of this war. They haul ammunition and supplies into what soldiers call the kill zone, guided remotely by operators miles away. Starlink terminals mounted on board make that possible. Without Starlink, the robots stop. And soldiers go in instead.

The result, according to sources familiar with Russian battlefield operations, is that Russia is now losing even more soldiers than before — men replacing machines that no longer work.