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Chinese retailer caught selling Starlink terminals to Russia

Starlink terminals sold in Russia despite Musk's denial

https://www.newsweek.com/chinese-retailer-caught-selling-starlink-terminals-russia-1874756

A self-identified "official distributor" of China drone giant DJI is selling the terminals on a Russian website amid the tech's alleged use in Ukraine.

Starlink terminals sold in Russia despite Musk's denial

SpaceX's Starlink user terminals are being openly sold in Russia, though CEO Elon Musk has denied knowledge of any such sales in the country.

The terminals, which link users with the Starlink satellite constellation are available on the Chinese company DJI's website in Russia.

The Shenzhen-based firm is better known as one of the world's leading drone producers. Soon after Russia began its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, DJI announced it would temporarily suspend business in both countries pending "compliance assessments."

31 comments

Darkassassin07

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Damn, I liked DJIs products.

Guess that's another one to add to the blacklist.

Also; I find it impossibly unlikely SpaceX has been entirely unaware of these terminals being active in Russia. They can identify the location of any active terminal via the satellite constellation and either gps or simply triangulation of the signals.

Raiderkev

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I'm sure they were selling them drones too.

Madison420

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If it comes from China it's hitting the shade at some point my friend the difference is in how much.

SupraMario

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Not easy to do when they're being used in Ukraine. Especially if you have trenches a few hundred yards from each other.

FenrirIII

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They would have used them in Russia at some point prior to actions in Ukraine. Plus, if they were sold to a Chinese company, they would be tracked and expected to be in China.

mindlight

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And that opens up another box of questions.

Why are the starlink satellites of Russia active at all? The amount of non Russian customers with legitimate use for Starlink would be a very very low number.

QuaternionsRock

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They would have used them in Russia at some point prior to actions in Ukraine.

Why?

Plus, if they were sold to a Chinese company, they would be tracked and expected to be in China.

True. It would also be easy enough to set up a whitelist by cooperating with the Ukrainian government. Alas, the temporary blackout last year made it obvious where Musk’s intentions lie in regard to Russia.

SupraMario

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This makes no sense, they don't need to set them up in russia. You can transfer your starlink account to anyone, you don't need to be in the country you bought it from.

FenrirIII

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Every company tracks where major hardware is shipped and the intended country of use. A company like Starlink definitely would because they need to know demand per region and support requirements in that region.

SupraMario

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They did, when it was shipped to China, why are you assuming they don't know where these are? They do, but it's not easy to figure out if it's the UA using them or the russians because the fighting is so damn close to each other.

someguy3

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I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.

(Well actually I'm surprised it's DJI, they could actually face sanctions if the US wanted to. I wouldn't be surprised if it were a pop up shop.)

Aqarius

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Sanction how? Both sides are buying all the Mavics they can get their hands on. DGI is the bell of the ball.

NegativeLookBehind

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So now we can pinpoint the Russian outposts when the terminals make contact with the satellites?

Death_Equity

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If Starlink will provide location information in a timely manner, which I don't have much confidence in.

gullible

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But… but musk said that starlink isn’t meant to be used for WAR! He surely wouldn’t lie in order to attempt to spin his intent to prolong the war and sell to the other side through an intermediary!!!

FlyingSquid

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Not with Elon running things considering he decided not allowing Ukraine to quickly win the war would start WWIII.

NegativeLookBehind

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No Such Agency surely has a…workaround…for gathering the data.

cyborganism

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The US DoD should seize that company and its assets.

FlyingSquid

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When Elon dies and all the truths come out, I guarantee you we will find out that he was fully aware of this.

JoMiran

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Blackout

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Get to the choppa!

ULS

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Wait does this mean they are cloned like every other Chinese factory made product? Are they made in Chinese factories?

JustMy2c

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Nope, they are official resellers for China (and Mongolia?)

Edit; which in my view makes it worse, Elon probably wanted this to happen....

Bassman1805

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ITAR is pretty direct about these situations: if you sell to a 3rd party and that 3rd party sells to an ITAR-restricted country, you're gonna get investigated HARD.

randombullet

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I think starshield is the only one that's ITAR controlled

Bassman1805

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I don't know the specifics of how it applies to Starlink, but I work in telecom and just about everything I do is ITAR controlled. I don't even make the telecom devices, just equipment to test them.

Rentlar

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As someone considered a "foreign person" in the context of these export regulations...

ITAR! ITAR! ITAR!

michaelmrose

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Terminals are uplinks to remote resources. They would be at minimum be able to see the terminals being used to connect to Russian VPNs and note that they are being used in areas controlled by Russia that are not contested. Our lawmakers must compel them to turn over the entire internal communications to a special master to determine what they knew about this and when and decision makers including Musk must be summoned to congress. When not if it is discovered that they were aware or willfully blind prosecutions for treason should begin. In between A and B the entire operation should be seized and operated by the US army.

UltraMagnus0001

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god of war

PoliticallyIncorrect

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Good

clearleaf

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OH NO ITS ALL OVER SAVE ME JESUS

I'M SHITTING MY PANTS I'M SO SCARED OR MAD OR WHATEVER AAAAAH