Russia strikes Kyiv data center it says supported Starlink for Ukraine's military
Russia's defense ministry says it hit a Kyiv data center that relayed Starlink connectivity for Ukrainian forces.
what happened
Russia's defense ministry said its forces struck the Cosmonova data processing center in Kyiv's Solomyanskyi district with drones overnight, saying the facility "provided mobile internet service and support" for Starlink use by the Ukrainian military, per TASS. Ukrainian officials confirmed a drone hit an office building at the site; Kyiv mayor Vitaliy Klitschko said five people were injured in strikes across the capital, and a Ukrainian TV channel said it halted broadcasts because of data-center damage, per Newsweek. Ukrainian lawmaker Oleksandr Fedienko, who chairs parliament's cybersecurity and communications subcommittee, said Kyiv does not believe the strikes damaged military capability.
why it matters
The strike is the second attack in three days that Russia or Polish investigators have tied to Starlink's supporting infrastructure, after Poland's Sept. 24 ground-station fire, underscoring that the terrestrial and metro-level links feeding Starlink's Ukraine service, not just the satellites, are now a stated target set. For an operator whose resilience pitch rests on satellite redundancy, a campaign against the data centers and gateways it depends on is a distinct threat model worth tracking alongside the orbital one.
signal-to-noise
quick facts
- Companies
- SpaceX
- Category
- geopolitical
- Impact
- notable
- SNR
- 4 / 5
- Event date
- 2026-09-26
- Published
- 2026-09-26 12:00 UTC