Authorities have thwarted what they called attempted sabotage against the Starlink network in Lithuania, the latest in a string of apparent attacks in Eastern Europe against the satellite internet provider. The service is used by NATO countries and is crucial for Ukraine in the war against Russia.
Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevičius of Lithuania said the attack occurred around 2 a.m. on Sunday, targeting antennas and a control unit at a data center company where Starlink infrastructure is installed.
Mr. Sinkevičius said at a news conference that “flammable liquids and Molotov cocktails” had been used, according to the local news media.
The control unit caught fire, but it was quickly extinguished after a security guard spotted the flames. The antenna was not damaged, and the head of Lithuania’s National Crisis Management Centre said Starlink service was not disrupted. A search for potential suspects is underway.
European officials have blamed a spate of recent, unconventional attacks on Russia, and Mr. Sinkevičius said in a radio interview that he saw the attack in his country as part of the same pattern, though he offered no evidence.
Where else has this happened?
Bulgaria’s prime minister said last week that Starlink antennas near the country’s capital had recently been attacked. He did not give details, citing a pending investigation. Bulgarian authorities are seeking a European arrest warrant for two suspects in the case who have left the country, according to prosecutors.
Last month, a fire at a Starlink station in central Poland damaged supply equipment and a generator. German authorities arrested two Turkish citizens last week in connection with the fire, which Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland called “another act of hybrid warfare.”
The Polish control station is an internet hub not just for Poland but also for communication services in Ukraine, according to Krzysztof Gawkowski, Poland’s deputy prime minister.
It was not immediately clear how deeply the recent attacks had affected Starlink’s network. SpaceX, the company led by Elon Musk that provides the service, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday.
Are the attacks linked?
While the authorities in all three cases have yet to determine who is responsible for the attacks, some officials have suggested that Russia could be targeting Starlink as a new front in its shadow war against NATO countries that support Ukraine.
Russia has for years been accused of launching cyber strikes against critical infrastructure like energy facilities and government networks; planting explosive packages on cargo planes; jamming navigation systems on commercial flights; and sending surveillance drones over military bases in Europe. Moscow has generally denied the accusations as “Russophobic.”
By their nature, the hybrid strikes are difficult to trace back to a perpetrator, and most incidents have been hard to pin down. Still, last month, Berlin directly attributed to Moscow a recent explosive-laden but faulty drone at the Leipzig-Halle airport, in eastern Germany, that was found near Ukrainian transport planes.
More recently, drone attacks on commercial ships in Black Sea zones that are considered Bulgarian and Romanian waters have been widely blamed on Russia. NATO’s North Atlantic Council, the military alliance’s decision-making forum, is expected to discuss the Black Sea attacks at a regularly scheduled meeting on Tuesday.
What does Starlink have to do with Ukraine?
Starlink is a service of SpaceX that provides internet connectivity across much of the world, including Europe, from satellites in lower earth orbit. A military-grade version, Starshield, was developed for the U.S. government, which has made it available to Ukraine.
The Ukrainian armed forces have relied heavily on the two services for battlefield communications, to carry out drone attacks, and to thwart Russian attacks.
But Ukraine has reported in recent days that its access to Starshield had been restricted.
President Trump, who is in a deepening feud with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, has denied ordering the restrictions and has said that he did not think Mr. Musk had done so either. Mr. Musk has suggested that any restrictions came from the Trump administration, which has been pushing Ukraine to agree to a peace deal that it fears could benefit Russia.
Still, some European advocacy groups have called for governments to cancel their contracts with Mr. Musk’s businesses.
“Ukraine’s ability to defend its people, and Europe’s ability to support it, must not depend on arbitrary decisions by a single company or on the political will of Donald Trump,” one group, Renew Europe, wrote in an Oct. 14 letter to Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission.
Ryan Mac, Boryana Dzhambazova and Tomas Dapkus contributed reporting.
The post Fire at Starlink Center in Lithuania Was Sabotage, Officials Say appeared first on New York Times.
