Elon Musk's Satellite Network Has an Off Switch. He Just Used It.

Firing into Wednesday!

Hello, Curse and Coffee friends,

Today, we look at SpaceX’s off switch. Hit reply and let us know what you think (we read all of your kind words).

Coffee at the ready…

The take: A private company just made the biggest battlefield call of the month. No government ordered it.

What happened: Ukraine's Defence Minister texted SpaceX. Musk said yes. Within eleven days, every unverified Russian terminal on the front line went dark.

Why it matters: Russia had no backup. Ukrainian troops reported losing coordination across stretches of the front. The off switch worked, and it sat in one man's pocket.

What to watch: Whether Musk keeps the whitelist active if peace talks produce a ceasefire, because the moment negotiations start, he decides whether Ukraine keeps its advantage.

Russia's official response was silence. Its bloggers called for nuking Musk's satellites.

[Analysis] When Your Shield Becomes Their Sword: The Starlink Paradox — Times of Israel, Feb 2026

Source: Vincent James Hooper, security analyst, Times of Israel.

Background: Written days after the whitelist went live, this piece reconstructs the full governance failure — from the first documented Russian Starlink use in Donetsk in 2024 to the January 2026 train strike.

Key quote: "SpaceX is not a government agency bound by alliance obligations or military protocols. It is a commercial enterprise whose owner has demonstrated both the willingness to make unilateral battlefield decisions and a volatile relationship with accountability."

Why it matters now: Peace talks between Ukraine, Russia, and the US are already underway in Abu Dhabi. The whitelist was activated during hostilities. Nobody has asked what happens to it during a ceasefire.

Before we slurp into today’s brew…

Here are some wordies from today’s sponsor.

AI is moving fast and most people are falling behind.

The Rundown AI is a free newsletter that keeps you ahead of the curve.

It's a free AI newsletter that keeps you up-to-date on the latest AI news, and teaches you how to apply it in just 5 minutes a day.

Plus, complete the quiz after signing up and they’ll recommend the best AI tools, guides, and courses — tailored to your needs.

Sign up to start learning.

Russia didn't hack Starlink.

It bought it through Dubai middlemen, falsified documents, and shell companies across Central Asia.

Terminals were activated in countries where Starlink is legal, then smuggled to the front.

Because the hardware is identical to civilian kit, SpaceX had no clean way to block it without also cutting off Ukrainian units using unregistered devices.

That's why the whitelist took so long.

Starlink isn't a weapons system. It has no treaty obligations, no alliance protocols, and no oversight body.

Every decision — who gets access, who gets cut off, when, and why — runs through one inbox.

This week, that was good news for Ukraine. But China is watching the Taiwan Strait and taking notes.

The question isn't whether a private company should control battlefield infrastructure.

It already does.

Pro: SpaceX acted fast when governments couldn't — a Ukrainian train full of civilians was hit by what analysts believe was a Starlink-guided drone on January 27th, and eleven days later every unauthorised terminal on the front line went dark.

Con: A private company just made a one-sided decision that altered an active war — no one authorised it, no treaty covers it, no regulator can touch it.

Our read: The scariest part isn't that Musk helped Ukraine. It's that the whole arrangement depends on him continuing to want to.

Starlink in the Russo-Ukrainian War — Wikipedia

A full timeline of how one man's satellite network became a weapons system — from Musk's 2022 "Starlink is now active in Ukraine" tweet to the February 2026 whitelist.

Russia had no battlefield alternative to Starlink. None. — Al Jazeera, Feb 2026

How Russian forces smuggled Starlink terminals through Dubai — The supply chain that made this possible, and why sanctions alone were never going to stop it.

Eleven days: from civilian train strike to full system shutdown — The full timeline from Fedorov's first call to Musk's public reply. When the Pentagon tried the same thing in 2024, it took months.

Starlink-equipped drones could reach Moldova and parts of Poland — That range figure is why this stopped being a Ukraine story and became a NATO one.

You can read all our back issue newsletters for free here.

For the love of coffee, see you tomorrow!

Enjoy your Wednesday, keep it caffeinated.

Thanks for reading!

Are you subscribing?

Join your crew of caffeinated sceptics today.

Be sure to get your daily Curse and Coffee fix by hitting the button below.

Open Monday to Friday.

Read Monday’s newsletter about ByteDance’s (TikTok’s) new video AI here.

Learn how to read any government/company PDF without crying!

Take advantage of what others miss. We teach you how to extract the gems from the dirt.

Share the Curse and Coffee newsletter with just 1 real person to download your Receipts Toolkit instantly. A field guide for caffeinated sceptics who want to pull signal from filings, datasets, and reports.

No law degree needed. A no-nap promise.

Refer to unlock and never struggle to identify opportunities in long, drawn-out documents again.

“Receipts over vibes. Always.”

Thank you for sharing…

And be sure to use your toolkit to extract max alpha from any document you read.

Stay Caffinated!