Ukrainian forces could abandon Starlink in favor of HiSKY, an Israeli-European alternative that is harder to jam

Ukrainian forces are increasingly using Israeli-Italian HiSKY terminals for long-range drones instead of the Starlink and Starshield services provided by the US company SpaceX. The change was reportedly prompted by restrictions imposed on satellite communications used in Ukraine and the risk that they could be deactivated for political reasons, Kyiv Post reports.

The first reports about the use of the HiSKY system emerged in late October in the Russian military press. According to these reports, Sirius 16x16 Ku terminals weighing approximately six kilograms were installed on drones involved in attacks on refineries and military infrastructure in Russia.

The system can transfer data at speeds of up to 2 Mbps and switches between geostationary satellites when the signal deteriorates. Its supporters say this feature makes the communications difficult to jam and allows trajectory corrections to be sent to drones in flight or enables the coordination of swarm attacks.

HiSKY nevertheless has a much lower capacity than Starlink, which can provide speeds ranging from 50 to more than 250 Mbps. For this reason, it does not allow visual piloting of long-range drones, but only their redirection toward targets.

According to reports, fragments of a Ukrainian drone equipped with a HiSKY terminal were recovered by Russian forces. Between October 15 and 29, Ukraine reportedly suspended its attacks on Russian refineries, while between October 30 and November 1 it resumed operations, with strikes reported in Nizhny Novgorod, Yaroslavl, and Ryazan. HiSKY is developed by the Israeli company HiSky through its British subsidiary hiSkySat, with European and British financial support.