Musk’s Starlink satellites aiding Ukraine could be legally destroyed by Russia, says space law expert
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Commercial satellites like Elon Musk’s Starlink could become legitimate targets during war if they help one side, a space law expert has warned.
Under the Geneva Convention, countries involved in military conflict are banned from attacking civilian objects.
But experts say the lines are becoming increasingly blurred, with satellite companies leaving themselves open to attacks either through cyber warfare or missile strikes.
Mr Musk’s Starlink satellite constellation has been helping Ukrainian forces to launch drone attacks against Russian tanks, even though the billionaire has warned that the service was to be used for Netflix, not drone strikes.
Russia, China and the US have already tested anti-satellite missiles, and have shown they have the capability to destroy satellites in orbit, while Russia has warned it will take action against private companies assisting enemy nations.
Speaking this week at the UK Space Conference in Belfast, Maj Jeremy Grunert, of the US Air Force Judge Advocate General Corps, said that companies needed to be careful about straying into conflicts.
“In the realm of the law of war, a nation needs to target military targets and to refrain from targeting civilian targets,” he said.
‘Starlink may be potential military target’
“But civilian targets could perhaps be targeted if it was providing a military benefit. So for example, right before the D-Day invasions, the bridges leading into Normandy and the railways leading into Normandy were all bombed because of the military benefit that was provided to the Germans.
“It’s the same thing in outer space and certainly, the way in which civilian systems like Starlink have been used for drone targeting - something that has proven to be somewhat controversial, even within the Starlink organisation itself - arguably would make Starlink a potential military target under the laws of war.”
Russia has already warned that the use of civilian infrastructure by Ukraine would make it a legal target.
Maj Grunert added: “There was some shock at the time that those comments were made.
“But in the context of the law of war, the Russians are likely not wrong on that, because of the military benefits that those sorts of things can provide.
“It doesn’t mean that civilian satellites would be targeted or targeted all the time. But it does mean that they potentially could be.”
Several countries now have the ability to shoot satellites out of orbit. The United States successfully destroyed one of its own satellites in 1985, while in 2007, China launched a missile strike on one of its weather satellites.
Threat to International Space Station
In 2021, Russia intentionally destroyed its defunct Cosmos 1408 satellite, leaving behind hundreds of thousands of pieces of space debris which posed a threat to the International Space Station.
Anatoly Antonov, the Russian ambassador to the US, has reportedly warned Mr Musk that interfering in the war “could lead to a nuclear response”.
Mr Musk was recently accused of switching off Starlink to prevent a drone attack on the Russian fleet near the coast of Crimea, but it later emerged that there had never been coverage in the area.
Asked about his role in the Ukraine war by biographer Walter Isaacson, Mr Musk said: “Starlink was not meant to be involved in wars. It was so people can watch Netflix and chill and get online for school and do good peaceful things, not drone strikes.”
