Ukraine Military History Institute
The advantage is real, and so is the risk attached to it
Rob Lee does not hedge about Starlink. Speaking with Samuel Cook after his early June 2026 trip along the front, he calls it a huge advantage for Ukraine, and he means it in operational terms rather than as a slogan.
Cook's reply is half a joke and half a warning. Don't say that too loud, he laughs, and then adds the serious point straight away: it is also a huge risk if anything changes politically or business-wise.
Lee agrees without qualification. Starlink, in his words, is a single point of failure. That framing matters, because it means the same system that gives Ukraine its edge is also the thing whose loss would hurt most.
Almost every unmanned system that matters runs on it
The dependency is not marginal. Lee lists where Starlink sits today.
It is used on almost all UGVs, and it is the main source of communication for them. It is used on naval drones. It is used on a lot of middle strike drones, though he is careful to say not all of them, and that other options exist in that category.
That is close to the full list of systems Ukraine has leaned on to offset Russian manpower. Ground robots, sea drones and strikes behind the line all share one link.
Units know this. Lee says most of them are trying to develop alternatives in case they lose it. The fact that the effort is spread across units, rather than solved centrally, tells you the alternatives are not yet in place.
Russia can jam it, but not yet at scale
The reason the advantage holds for now is on the Russian side. Lee's assessment is that Russia does not have a great countermeasure. It is developing its own analog, but it is far behind on it.
What Russia does have is electronic warfare aimed at Starlink. Lee says Russia is developing EW systems that can jam it, and is using them now. The effect he describes is limited: in some cases drones lose video feed briefly.
His open question is whether Russia can scale that into something systematic. His answer is honest: I'm not sure. That is a hedge worth keeping, because it is the hinge of the whole argument. Brief, local interruptions are a nuisance. A systematic capability would put pressure on the one link most of these systems share.
Lee's explanation for why Russia struggles to compete is a combination rather than a single item. He describes it as ingenuity at the front paired with American ingenuity built into these systems, and says that pairing is very difficult for Russia to match.
Europe's money works because it is targeted
Cook pushes the conversation toward a second source of advantage. Don't forget Europe, he says, which is stepping up massively. He and Lee both see a lot of companies coming in, and in his description the number of new, well-funded, highly competent miltech startups is exploding.
Lee adds the detail that explains why it is working. European funding is targeted. European governments are funding direct units, direct capabilities and direct companies, trying to develop the capabilities they know the military needs, and paying for it themselves.
His verdict on that model is unambiguous: the targeted funding has been very effective. Money that goes to a named unit for a named capability does not get diluted on its way to the front.
Middle strike is what that combination bought
The clearest payoff Lee points to is middle strike. It is, he says, really not a capability Ukraine had last year.
The problem it solved was never intelligence. For a long time, Lee explains, Ukraine knew where the targets were: command posts and other targets behind the line. It did not have the capacity to hit them. Now it does.
That shift, in his judgement, has really changed the dynamic of the fighting this year. It is one of the main reasons he gives for what he calls relative optimism.
Put the pieces together and the shape of the advantage is clear. A lot of middle strike runs on Starlink. A lot of the industry building those drones is being carried by targeted European money. The capability that changed the year sits on top of both.
The optimism comes with a condition
Lee states the condition himself. Ukraine's defense industry is very innovative, he says, and it has great people. As long as it has enough money to produce at scale and to keep innovating, Ukraine is going to have an advantage.
The phrase doing the work is "as long as". Lee ties the edge to the funding being sustained, and Cook has already tied the communications side to nothing changing politically or commercially. Neither is a battlefield variable. Both are decisions made far from the front.
Lee also cautions against reading any of this as uniform. Different parts of the frontline are different, he notes, which is a reminder that a national advantage can still be uneven sector by sector.
That is the honest summary of Lee's argument. Ukraine's current edge in unmanned systems is real, it has changed what Ukraine can hit, and it rests on a communications link and a funding stream that Ukraine does not fully control.
What to watch
- Russian Starlink jamming beyond brief video loss. Lee's own test is whether Russia can scale its EW into a systematic capability. Reports of sustained, widespread loss of link on UGVs or naval drones would mean it has.
- Non-Starlink links on ground and sea drones. Lee says most units are developing alternatives. Units fielding them as standard, rather than as backups, would show the single point of failure being closed.
- Continuity of European direct-to-unit funding. Lee ties the advantage to that money being sustained. A pause or shift away from targeted funding of units and companies would test his optimism directly.