future

It’s the worst ski resort nightmare: hillsides of shaggy yellow grass streaked with slush under a leaden sky that’s coughing up sleet. Parts of Europe – places previously accustomed to crisp snow fields and pristine blue skies – are now facing this calamity, something meteorologists might describe as a British winter.

Not everywhere, of course. Only lower altitudes are seeing such disasters. Higher up, normal service continues. I’m in the Swiss resort of Laax, where most of the slopes are at about 2,000 metres, lofty enough to be snow-secure, for now. The halfpipe is busy with dudes in baggy trousers and headphones nonchalantly practising their double corks. On the traditional pistes there are four-year-olds who could probably ski before they could walk. And then – Switzerland has its wacky side – three young men in first-world-war greatcoats on antique wooden skis propel themselves with rough-hewn quarter-staves.

Is all this destined to disappear, perhaps in our children’s lifetimes? To put it in stark, white and black terms: are ski resorts in the same predicament as oil-dependent desert states, watching their one key source of wealth dwindle and disappear?

If so, Laax is not going down without a fight. This unusual Swiss resort, close to the Austrian border, is making a bold attempt to be carbon neutral by 2030, a goal that requires cutting out all oil use, making all energy generation sustainable, and reducing food waste to zero. Stung by climate crisis criticism levelled at the ski industry, this community is now far ahead of most. What I have come to see may turn out to be the future of winter sports.

Down in Laax, I meet Reto Gurtner, 71, CEO of the Flims Laax resort. His father built the first ski lifts back in 1962. “Although there had been summer visitors since the 19th century, Laax was a poor village back then,” says Gurtner.

In the 1970s, something significant changed. Gurtner went to study at UCLA and, under the California sun, discovered skateboarding. Even now the memory makes his eyes light up. “They were inventing new sports and I loved the style: no nationalism or militarism. Skateboards, mountain bikes, snowboards – if you did a good run, everyone applauded. It didn’t matter who you were. There was a freedom about it.”

He came home with a degree in economics, but more importantly perhaps, a snowboard and a mountain bike. “We went up on the glacier and built the first halfpipe with shovels.”

At first, there was a lot of resistance. Local ski outfitters refused to stock snowboards, while in summer, farmers were outraged at the sight of cyclists pelting down mountain tracks. “We made every cyclist wear a bib,” says Gurtner with a chuckle. “Then the farmers thought it was a race and were fine with that.”

Conversation with Gurtner is a wild ride. We cartwheel through Steve Jobs, the German poets and the Wu-Tang Clan, as he describes how his visionary approach evolved into something he calls “greenstyle”, an optimistic and well-designed future.

That vision is found in all the new buildings around the resort, nowhere more so than the ski lift in the neighbouring village of Flims, where I head with local guide Doris Rellstab. “The new gondola system does away with unoccupied ski gondolas going up and down the mountainside,” she says. A complex algorithm allows skiers to choose one of five destinations up the mountain, despatching individual gondolas, which balances energy efficiency with passenger demand. As we are lifted smoothly up over the fir trees, the quiet efficiency of this on-demand system becomes immediately apparent.

Rellstab tells me how things have changed in the half century since she began teaching winter sports. “Yesterday, I taught my first Arab group. They were a lot of fun.”

Our destination is Segnes, high above the treeline at 2,100 metres. Having left the gondola, we don snow shoes and head into a bowl-like snow-filled valley. A couple of miles ahead, the valley ends in a sheer rock face topped by a jagged range of peaks. “That’s the Tschingelhörner,” says Rellstab. “Can you see the line in the rock below the peaks? That was once a geological mystery.”

In 1848, the celebrated geologist Roderick Impey Murchison arrived here with a local expert, Arnold Escher von der Linth. Older rocks were overlaying younger, a puzzle for which there was no explanation. It took more than a century for scientists to solve the problem: the ancient African tectonic plate was riding up over the younger European one. The world was indeed upside down.

In summer, this area is covered in rare Alpine flowers and there’s a mountain hut to stay in. Next to us are the tracks of a snow hare. “Wildlife is doing well here,” says Rellstab. “The wolf and lynx have both returned.”

In fact, climate change appears to be assisting wolves in the Alps. The first Alpine pack was recorded in 1993, and by 2021 there were more than 250, with an annual growth rate of about 25%. Switzerland, once entirely wolf-free, now has about 40 packs. Rellstab shows me a website where sightings are monitored. There are conflicts with farmers and hunters, but the numbers keep growing, an indication that parts of the ecosystem are doing well out of retreating snowlines.

Perhaps more surprising is that lack of snow is not a big worry to the resort. As Gurtner points out: “Laax is not snow-dependent. A halfpipe or a snow freestyle playground doesn’t need a lot, and we make it with hydro power. And we’ve got mountain bikes and amazing hikes.”

Later that day, I am up on the mountain with my skis, wandering around on blue runs. Conditions are a bit icy and I’m playing safe, finding myself on a less frequented route that dips down into the valley. And then I come over a ridge and the snow on either side is gone – only the piste remains, a broad band of white curling down through green pasture dotted with lovely old barns. Cannon snow is more durable, surviving longer when the “real” stuff melts. Most Alpine ski stations are already reliant on it, but unlike many, Laax does not add any chemical or biological additives to the water in its cannons. With sustainable power sources and electric piste-grooming machinery now becoming available, cannon snow is not as environmentally destructive as it may appear.

At the foot of the hill, I reach the village of Falera, neighbour to Laax. There is one old chair lift, clanking and squeaking, and as I approach it comes to a halt. “Sorry,” says the attendant, “we are closed now.”

I wander into the village, all hand-hewn barns with neat log stacks. I can’t see any cars. If Laax is taking the technological solution, its neighbour appears to have chosen a less frenetic and more traditional route to net zero. After 20 minutes, a bus (electric, naturally) appears. As I ride back to Laax, I check the wildlife website that Rellstab recommended. And I get a shock. According to a CCTV report from a few hours earlier, a wolf had walked within a mile of me. Outside my hotel, I jump off the bus. Evening is falling. I wait for a line of silent cars to go by. With electric motors everywhere, the town is hushed. Climate change, I reflect, is nothing if not unpredictable. When the wolves howl, you will hear them.

The trip was provided by Flims Laax and rental equipment by Ecoski . Trains run from Zurich via Chur and the Rhine Gorge to Ilanz, where there’s a bus service to Laax. Inghams offers a seven-night trip to Laax from £1,618pp B&B, including flights

Dodger Stadium was eerily quiet on Wednesday, as a light rain fell over the already-yellowing grass. A crow perched on an empty seat. Scattered lights flickered in mostly-dark hallways.

Before the World Series had begun, the stadium was closed down for the season, hosting just one last event before officially wrapping up the 2026 slate.

In the interview room, tucked away at the entrance to the clubhouse, president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman and general manager Brandon Gomes took their seats at the podium for their end-of-season press conference.

There was the usual end-of-season checklist. Are you expecting any changes to the coaching staff or front office? “I expect status quo,” Friedman said. Is Shohei Ohtani going to undergo offseason surgery? “That’s not on the table,” Friedman said.

But from that emerged a persistent throughline.

The Dodgers had fallen short of their goal of a three-peat. But considering the age of the position-player core, the scrutiny owner Mark Walter is under, and MLB owners’ insistence on a salary cap in their early CBA proposals, was the Dodgers’ dynasty over?

“I welcome it,” Friedman said of such claims. “For us, and we’ve talked about this a lot, even after successes and we winning a World Series and then winning back to back, everything we do is for our fans. And there’s a lot of noise around us in general. We don’t really pay much attention to it. It’s a partnership we feel with our fans, and so people saying that we’re done and we’re on the downside of this run — it’s just more noise to us because everything for us is about the motivation we have to have a parade in the streets of Los Angeles next November.”

Friedman also didn’t seem to anticipate any trickle down from Walter’s outside ventures — Walter’s insurance companies are under federal investigation and face several lawsuits — affecting the Dodgers’ offseason budget.

“It’s been business as usual for us,” Friedman said. “We talked to Mark after we lost, and he was obviously really disappointed. But so much of his focus was on, ‘OK, what can we do? What are our plans? What are our thoughts for the off season?’ And our brains weren’t quite there yet, but so much of his focus was how do we put ourselves in the best position to win in ‘27?”

How will the Dodgers go about picking themselves up from their NLCS exit?

The Dodgers’ 2026 season wasn’t exactly a failure. They won 100 games in the regular season and lost in the playoffs to the only team that won more than that — the Brewers. But the Dodgers, with their star power and payroll, aren’t in the business of accepting moral victories.

Though plenty went wrong in the postseason, from Ohtani’s struggles following hisinjured list stint, to stalwart Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s surprising short start in Game 2 of the NLCS, the overarching theme in the Dodgers’ four straight losses to the Brewers was a lack of offensive execution, especially with runners in scoring position.

“Obviously throughout the latter part of the year, it was stuff we were talking about and trying to put our finger on,” Friedman said of the offense. “And in a lot of ways, it’s a little bit of a game of whack-a-mole, where it can be one thing for some period of time, and then it’s something else, and then it’s something else. Sometimes it’s noise, and sometimes it’s real. And what’s important for us is to be able to sift out the noise and isolate what’s real and what things we can improve upon. We’ll spend a lot of time really focusing on that in the off season.”

Asked if the age of the lineup could be a contributing factor, Friedman pointed to the strong finishes of some of the more veteran players on the roster.

“I don’t think it’s as easy as to paint it with that broad of a stroke,” he said.

Friedman, in an effort to continue to extend the Dodgers’ run of success, has kept in mind the cliff that successful veteran teams can fall off of, if the roster isn’t properly backfilled.

“This isn’t something that we just woke up and were like, ‘Oh wow, the age of our position player group,’” Friedman said. “We knew what things were going to look like in ‘26, ‘27, but also how talented these guys are, the way they prepare. And so much of our long-term contract bats are betting on the human — betting on the person, betting on the work ethic, betting on them doing everything they can to keep themselves in the best position to have success. But when you couple the core talent that we have at the major league level with the position-player strengths that we have in our farm system, that’s what makes us excited, is the art of how to onboard some of these young, talented minor league players.”

The Dodgers had the No. 1 ranked farm system as of mid-August, according to MLB Pipeline. But many of those prospects, including the three outfielders who the Dodgers’ Top 3 (Josue De Paula, Eduardo Quintero and Mike Sirota), are blocked by veteran players.

“For us, it’s just about having as many many talented players as we can, and things tend to sort themselves out,” Friedman said.

This offseason, the Dodgers will also have to figure out what to do about their soon-to-be free agents, a group headlined by left-hander Tarik Skubal. The two-time Cy Young winner was not only the best pitcher available on the trade market when the Dodgers acquired him from the Tigers at the trade deadline, but he’s in line to be the best pitcher available this offseason as well.

“It’s not easy for a guy to get traded in the middle of a season to come to a new city, new clubhouse,” Friedman said. “You have set routines, and you have to make those adjustments. It’s not easy. The way he was able to seamlessly transition, not just in terms of on the field, but in the clubhouse, I can’t say enough good things about the impact that he made in such a short period of time.

“We have a tremendous amount of respect for him on and off the field. … He’s put himself in this position to go out and be a free agent. And for us, it’s, continue to talk to [his agent, Scott Boras]. But he and his family have to make a choice over where they want to spend the next X number of years, and obviously we wish him nothing but the best.”

When asked about negotiations, however, Friedman spoke generally, saying the Dodgers were still “wrapping [their] arms around” their offseason strategy.

The impending lockout, which is expected to go into effect on Dec. 1 as soon as the current CBA expires, and uncertainty over changes in the next CBA, will certainly affect the free agent and trade markets this offseason. And though MLB navigated a lockout just five years ago, the owners’ push for a salary cap has many around the industry bracing for a longer work stoppage and murkier landscape on the other side.

“I never have any feel for how a market’s going to play out,” Friedman said. “We’ve kidded ourselves in the past that, like, ‘Hey, we think this is going to happen,’ and it just takes on its own life form. So for us, it’s just about being as prepared as we possibly can be, and pouncing on opportunities.”

It stopped me mid-scroll. In an Instagram reel, one DJ was mixing an upbeat track in a dark, packed room while another danced on a stage behind her, twerking perfectly on beat. Above them, a message flashed on a massive screen: “Love. Dance. And F— Ice.”

The crowd went wild, matching the energy of the two Los Angeles-based DJs who go by Mango and Ginger. The night looked so electric that I could feel the FOMO traveling through my body.

When I tapped the location tag, I assumed I was looking at an underground warehouse party in downtown L.A. or a venue in Hollywood. Instead, the party — known as If You See Me You See Me — was happening 120 miles south in San Diego. As a DJ and music lover, I knew I needed to get down there ASAP.

For many Angelenos, San Diego is the place to go for a peaceful weekend getaway — think scenic cliffs, serene beaches, fresh fish tacos and visits to Balboa Park and the San Diego Zoo. But it’s easy to sleep on its vibrant nightlife scene — and I don’t just mean the bars crowding the Gaslamp Quarter. The city is home to some of the most exciting late-night spaces, from hi-fi listening lounges to a cinematic Middle Eastern restaurant that feels straight out of Disneyland.

“People just aren’t aware,” says San Diego native Mo Perez, who as DJ Dopemo regularly packs out parties at North Park’s Bluefoot Bar and Lounge. “Then they come here and they’re like, ‘Wow, San Diego is really fun.’”

This is part of the reason why Sasha Marie, a longtime DJ and former member of the Soulection music collective, decided to continue hosting her event If You See Me You See Me, in partnership with Future Is Color, in her hometown of San Diego, even amid invitations to bring it to other cities. She invites DJs from around the globe, many of whom wouldn’t typically play in San Diego, to spin at the party.

“I feel like it’s important to show that something can be successful here,” she says.

Consider this your wake-up call to tap into San Diego’s nightlife scene, whether you want to go dancing or vibe to diverse sounds or have a cocktail in a one-of-a-kind atmosphere. These nine great spots are a sampling of how the city comes alive after dark.

Ukraine continues to struggle with throttling of the speeds at which weapons using the vital satellite communications services provided by the SpaceX Starlink system can operate, one weapons manufacturer tells us it is rethinking whether to rely on it in the future. As we have previously reported, heavy use of Starlink on both sides of the conflict in Ukraine, including as a means of guiding one-way attackers in the air and at sea, has underscored potential risks of exclusive reliance on Elon Musk’s orbital communications networks in critical tactical tasks.

At issue are complaints by Ukrainian officials that “in various sectors of the front, the equipment ceases to function at speeds of 130–161 kilometers per hour.”

A limit on how fast Starlink terminals on vehicles can travel before the feed is cut off in certain areas impacts a slew of weapons and campaigns, especially strikes on Russian logistics behind enemy lines and in the sea of Asov, as well as the control of defensive interceptor drones critical for taking down Russian long-range one-way attack drones, like the notorious Shahed-136.

The following video shows one such Shahed interception.

The limiting of Starlink/Starshield occurred amid deteriorating relations between the Trump administration and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The latest chill between Washington and Kyiv was sparked by the American leader’s claims that Ukraine’s attacks on Russia’s energy infrastructure have reduced the supply of diesel fuel to the U.S. and other nations more than the conflict in the Middle East. Trump was upset Ukraine kept hitting these targets despite his demanding they stop.

Exacerbating this issue, Trump on Oct. 9 announced via his Truth Social platform that he had made a deal to purchase diesel from Russia, pivoting away from a years-old Western policy that placed massive economic pressure on Moscow.

Who gave the order to limit the speeds at which Ukrainian weapons using the Starlink/Starshield system operate is unclear.

“The order to limit a satellite system used by Ukraine ​for battlefield communications and drone operations came from inside the White House,” Reuters reported last week, citing two U.S. officials and a Western official briefed on the matter. “The officials said ‌leaders at the Defense Department received a message that the SpaceX Starshield service for the Ukrainian military needed to be slowed.”

“No such request was ever made by the president,” a U.S. official told us on Monday.

“There has been no change to Department of War policy regarding intelligence sharing or any capabilities we are enabling Europeans to provide to Ukraine,” a senior Pentagon official responded to our questions about whether the Pentagon imposed the limits and, if so, why.

When we pushed for a more specific response to the Starlink/Starshield concerns, the Pentagon declined comment. However, Tuesday afternoon, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the Pentagon did not order any changes and that Ukraine violated Starlink’s terms of services.

We reached out to SpaceX as well, but the company did not immediately respond. Last week, SpaceX’s founder and CEO, Elon Musk, said that “any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately” Trump. Musk had previously refused Ukrainian requests to use Starlink against targets inside Russia.

The prohibition against using Starlink inside Russia has drastically limited Ukraine’s ability to strike dynamic targets like mobile ballistic missile launchers and hunt for drone launch sites. However, Ukraine has not had to rely on Starlink in its campaign against oil infrastructure or other fixed targets deep inside Russia which upset Trump in the first place.

Tuesday morning, Zelensky spoke with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and again brought up Starlink/Starshield in addition to other major concerns.

“…the situation with Starlink/Starshield… needs to be restored,” Zelensky urged.

I spoke with Marco Rubio @SecRubio, and it was a substantive conversation – focused on the issues that matter. I am grateful for his readiness to help and his clear position. First, ballistic missile interceptors, which are needed to protect lives. Second, early warning of…

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) October 20, 2026

Rubio denied that any assistance was being withheld from Ukraine. Noting that Starlink “is a private company,” the secretary told reporters that Trump is “frustrated…because he doesn’t like to be blamed for things that aren’t true, including accusations that somehow he had ordered intelligence sharing to be cut off. And that’s not true; he’s said that repeatedly.”

SECRETARY RUBIO: There’s nothing being deliberately denied to Ukraine. It’s simply a balance between our obligations to other partners, and frankly, our own standards and requirements for our own facilities as well. pic.twitter.com/x9NWbIufBa

— Department of State (@StateDept) October 20, 2026

This most recent flap isn’t the first time SpaceX and Musk have faced particularly significant criticism over limiting some Ukrainian use of the network. Actions SpaceX took earlier this year to block unregistered Starlink terminals also had major consequences for Russian forces, which were sent scrambling to find alternatives to fill the massive resulting communications gap.

Given the tenuous nature of Ukraine’s ability to use Starlink/Starshield, the Wild Hornets company is reevaluating whether to use the SpaceX system in future endeavors even though, so far, it has experienced few problems with it. Wild Hornets is a major Ukrainian combat drone maker. Among other weapons, it makes the Sting interceptors, designed to defend against Russian Shahed kamikaze drones.

The Starlink/Starshield issue isn’t affecting current operations, Wild Hornets spokesman Mike Orliuk told us Tuesday morning. “Our own communications system provides the basic connection to our interceptors,” he said. “Plus, our technology for remote control of the interceptors can use various sources of internet connectivity. True, the military often uses Starlink for this, but in our case, the terminal doesn’t need to be moved at high speeds (it simply provides a connection between the command center and the ground station to which the interceptor is connected—it’s somewhat similar to cell towers).”

Відео 100 збиттів шахедів перехоплювачем #STING #wildhornets #дикішершні #fpv

Concerns about the reduction in speeds at which Starlink terminals can operate has Wild Hornets thinking about ditching a future project, Orliuk told us.

“But we understand that there are other types of interceptors,” added Orliuk. “For example, some drones carry a terminal on board and need to fly at high speed with it. In such cases, Starlink’s limitations make their operation impossible. From this point of view, it also makes us rethink some of the projects we’re currently working on. For example, launching interceptors from aerial platforms.”

“We’re keeping an eye on the situation,” Orliuk continued. “For our current operations (connections with ground stations), we can use any source of stable internet connectivity. Therefore, various solutions are possible in different locations. However, for these needs, everything is operating normally with Starlink at the moment. As for our plans with new projects, we don’t have a clear decision yet, but we will be testing alternatives.”

Orliuk declined to provide further details about what “alternatives” could look like.

There are a number of ways the lack of Starlink for extended-range drone operations could be mitigated to a degree, but the persistent, reliable, high-bandwidth and compact capability SpaceX provides has no direct alternative at this time. The use of drones that work as line-of-sight relays, which can be daisy chained together electronically with other airborne relays, with a connection spanning dozens or even hundreds of miles to a ground entry point is possible. You can read about this concept here. The use of swarms of balloons to create an active network over a battlespace and using starlink on those slower moving platforms to relay line-of-sight connections to multiple drones below is another possibility. You can read more about this concept here. But we must stress again, nothing can fully replace Starlink/Starshield and its seamless beyond line-of-sight communications architecture at this time.

“I believe, in any case, depending on a single solution is very risky,” Orliuk proffered. “Especially if you don’t have full control over it. Especially when it comes to something as critical on the battlefield as communications. That’s exactly why our ecosystem is built around our own communications technology and basically is open to various solutions when it comes to internet connectivity.”

The No. 1 interceptor: STING by Wild Hornets has destroyed over 15,000 Shaheds and Gerberas in one year 🔥

Confirmed data shows that STING has topped the interceptor rankings for 12 consecutive months. In September this year, Ukraine’s Defense Forces downed around 1,600 Shaheds,… pic.twitter.com/4v1aeOxPiy

— Wild Hornets (@wilendhornets) October 13, 2026

As far as military units are concerned, the commander of the Georgian Legion told us that his forces have been affected by issues with Starlink/Starshield even though the main concerns have been about the speeds at which weapons can travel and still have connectivity. The Georgian Legion is fighting in the heavily contested Kramatorsk region of eastern Ukraine.

“We use Starlink a lot because, in this war, reliable communication is essential,” Mamuka Mamulashvili told us. “It helps us stay connected when everything around us is changing. Of course, we’ve learned not to rely on just one system. There are alternatives, like mobile internet, fiber-optic connections, radio and other satellite systems such as OneWeb. But honestly, none of them can fully replace Starlink in Ukraine right now.”

“The problems were not limited to the speed restriction of approximately 160 km/h,” the Georgian Legion commander pointed out. “Starlink connectivity itself was also intermittent, repeatedly switching on and off. This caused communication disruptions across various drone systems, not just those operating at speeds exceeding 160 km/h. As a result, the impact was broader than the restriction on high-speed interceptor drones. Intermittent connectivity created problems for drone control and communications across multiple systems, affecting their reliability and the ability to carry out missions as intended.”

“We had serious communication problems,” Mamulashvili explained. “At one point, our drone operators were struggling to maintain a reliable connection with the drone systems, which disrupted coordination and made it difficult to carry out missions as planned. When you lose the connection between the operator and the drone, you can lose control of the situation in seconds. We managed to adapt, but it definitely affected our work.”

“We have to adapt and find solutions, as we always do,” the commander said. “This war teaches you one thing every day. You can’t depend on a single technology or expect someone else to solve all your problems. You have to be ready for anything and keep moving forward.”

Russian sources, meanwhile, are gloating over the speed limits placed on weapons using Starlink/Starshield, particularly how it is affecting Ukraine’s mid-range drone attacks that have crippled Russian logistics. As we explained in a previous report, Ukrainian units have relied on the SpaceX system to help extend the range of their drones to reach as far as 150 miles into Russian-occupied territory. The SpaceX system is not used to hit targets inside Russia proper.

The following video shows some of these mid-range attacks.

Russian rail logistics are now also the target of Midstrike drones, with lines to Crimea being particularly affected. pic.twitter.com/K1BFd0QVov

— Sergio 🇺🇦 🇪🇺 (@SergioCentaurus) June 5, 2026

“Disabling or slowing down Starlink has significantly reduced the enemy’s ability to launch medium-range drone strikes along the ‘Novorossiya’ highway,” influential Russian milblogger Vladimir Romanov reported. The highway, also known as the R-280, is a key link between cities in occupied southern Ukraine and the occupied Crimean peninsula. The road has been a frequent target of Ukraine’s mid-range strike campaign.

“The success of these strikes depends on the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ access to American satellite communication,” Romanov noted. “For the past six months, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have been attacking civilian transport – trucks, cars, and buses – exclusively through the use of ‘Starshield.’ This means that, for the past six months, American military satellite infrastructure has been used to carry out terrorist acts against Russian civilians, and so on. In other words, the United States is still directly involved in the war with Russia!”

America’s gifts to Russia never end, with Russian military bloggers now confirming that Washington’s operation to cut Ukraine’s Starlink has halted Ukraine’s ability to strike Russian logistics routes in Ukraine.

An operation likely written in the Kremlin, executed by… pic.twitter.com/iXcIAu5Rr3

— SPRAVDI — Stratcom Centre (@StratcomCentre) October 20, 2026

As for how widespread worries among Ukrainian weapons manufacturers are, Orliuk suggested that Wild Hornets is not alone. He said he has spoken with other companies relying much more heavily on Starlink/Starshield who have expressed concerns. He pointed to growing interest in the European Eutelsat satellite constellation as an example of companies seeking options, but noted that “of course, creating something like Starlink won’t be easy.”

We’ve reached out to the Ukrainian Brave1 defense technology incubator and the National Association of Ukrainian Defense Industries (NAUDI) for additional insights into how this issue is affecting Ukraine’s defense manufacturing base.

It will be interesting to see if other Ukrainian weapons companies also consider scrapping plans to rely on Starlink in the future and what architectures will emerge at least as a backstop to it.

Contact the author: howard@twz.com

As he prepares for a potential future conflict on the continent, the commanding general of Multi-Domain Command Europe told TWZ that he envisions dispersing hundreds of high-altitude balloons at a time. The balloons, Brig. Gen. Steven Carpenter explained, would be used for a wide range of purposes, from serving as communications platforms to launching weapons. For years now, TWZ has been closely tracking the expanding use of high-altitude balloons and other lighter-than-air systems globally for intelligence gathering, networking, as platforms for launching drones, and in support of other missions.

Basically, in the European scenario, hundreds or possibly thousands of balloons would be sent east. They would provide attritable real-time reconnaissance, strike, and decoy capabilities, while also acting as a force multiplier for other assets by providing a resilient active network over the battlefield — one that could help fill in the gaps if the space-based layer gets degraded.

“We would like to proliferate the stratosphere with high-altitude balloons, but I mean 200, 300 at a time,” Carpenter told us during last week’s Association of the U.S. Army (AUSA) conference in Washington, D.C., which TWZ attended. The Army would utilize high-altitude balloons “not only as decoys, a lot of decoys, but also communications retrans[mission platforms], electronic sensing, as well as electronic attack, and then obviously air-launched effects to be able to drop them down and use kinetic means as well.”

Air-launched effects (ALEs) is a collective term the U.S. military now commonly uses to discuss air-launched drones configured for a wide array of missions. The ALE umbrella encompasses designs that can be used for surveillance and reconnaissance, electronic warfare tasks, or signal relay, and can act as decoys. It also includes loitering munitions often referred to as kamikaze drones, capable of carrying kinetic attacks.

In general, modern high-altitude balloons offer persistent deployment that can last for days, weeks or even months at a time. After navigating to an assigned operating area, some modern balloon systems can hold their position, in spite of prevailing winds, by modulating their altitudes to keep on station.

In addition, high-altitude balloons operate at heights providing excellent fields of view for radars, cameras, and other sensors in all directions and across very broad areas. From a perch of 60,000 feet or more, they also offer a way to peer into certain denied areas while still soaring in international airspace and keeping farther away from potential threats. During a conflict, the balloons could be deployed deep into enemy airspace as they are attritable.

Though some balloon systems can hold their general positions in many circumstances, Carpenter told us that seasonal weather changes will still play a role in deployment.

“The flight paths are different. We study that,” he noted. “We understand during what seasons where the best places are to launch those high-altitude systems, and then again to hold enemy cities and capabilities at risk at any time, so that we can defeat them at the time and place of our choosing.”

We asked Carpenter for more details about how he sees balloons being used by troops in Europe.

“I think everybody knows there’ll be a point where satellite communications are going to be degraded, if not eliminated,” he stated. “One of the things that we’re focusing on is in the stratosphere, so above 60,000 feet up to 80,000 feet, which is next to impossible to target unless you’re using one of your exquisite systems, fifth-gen fighters, SA-21 Bravo [S-400 Triumf surface-to-air missile system], etc. to shoot that stuff down.”

Many of the balloons would be equipped with Link 16, a NATO-standard tactical datalink communication system central to U.S. and allied military operations, the general said. Link 16 allows coalition forces to seamlessly transmit and exchange real-time situational awareness data. You can read more about how Link 16 works, and its increasing dependence of space, in our story here.

As for using balloons as ALE delivery platforms, Carpenter told us there are “different technologies, different altitudes that we’d have to deliver those from” at “different ranges, different levels of yield or lethality. But for us, it’s really just a single arrow in a quiver full of arrows, utilizing space capabilities, cyber capabilities, or surface-to-surface capabilities. In this case, you’re talking just another air-to-surface capability with your air-launched effects off balloons.”

Carpenter said that when it comes to balloon-launched ALEs, he is looking at “everything from shorter range, lower yield, maybe targeting an adversary ballistic missile radar, to longer range, higher yield capabilities that you might use to maybe take out a ballistic missile system.”

In such cases, the balloons would carry drones deep into enemy territory, where they would be launched opportunistically to strike the targets Carpenter suggested. The size of the target, and how well it is protected, would determine what kinds of drones the balloons would launch, as well as their proximity to the target.

Should a fight break out in Europe tonight, Carpenter said he is confident he can rely on the technology.

“Our operating concept is proven,” he stated, noting that “we’ve already tested those capabilities against most modern adversary systems that exist. We’ve already validated our operating concept in terms of getting to mass and scale that we would need in large-scale conflict.”

As we have previously reported, while high-altitude balloons have been used for decades, the modern concept of these systems was recently employed operationally by the U.S. in a combat theater.

The Army had planned to demonstrate the ability of balloons to operate in swarms with a high degree of autonomy in the Pacific region last year before those assets were redirected to the Middle East. When exactly that deployment occurred and how long it lasted are unclear.

“We were asked to pivot and do some experimentation in combination with operations, and we pivoted and supported operations in CENTCOM [U.S. Central Command],” Andrew Evans, Director of Strategy and Transformation with the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Army, or G-2, told Breaking Defense, according to a story the outlet published last week. “They were effective for the mission that they were assigned,” he added. However, Evans was not able to disclose the exact location and operational scenarios in which they were used.

Other countries, including U.S. allies and partners, are increasingly fielding balloon-based and other lighter-than-air systems, too. Ukrainian forces notably have been using balloons to conduct kinetic attacks and launch drones against Russian assets. On the other side of that conflict, the Russians have used balloons as decoys to confuse and misdirect air defenses.

The following video shows Ukrainian forces using balloons to launch kamikaze drones.

To achieve the effects he laid out, Carpenter told us that he will still need to surge capacity to Europe.

“The Army will make decisions on which vendors they’re going to go with,” he pointed out. “But the ability to field that at scale is just simply based on the resources provided. I’m talking about money to go ahead and bring them into theater.”

Pushed to provide details of how quickly he could have the desired number of balloons, Carpenter told us that “if the United States or NATO and its allies were on a wartime footing, it would be extremely rapid, but we would need to get them into theater before crisis turned to conflict. So we’d have to keep a close eye from an IC [intelligence community] perspective on indicators and warnings to make sure we have the right systems on the ground at point of need.”

The Army’s overall vision for balloons is not new; the service has been openly discussing it for at least six years now. However, the use of high-altitude balloons in this context is now being operationalized. Meanwhile, China has very actively shown off its ability to gather intelligence and conduct other missions using balloons and other lighter-than-air craft on a broad operational level across the Pacific. TWZ had been reporting on this reality for years before it was thrust fully into the public consciousness after a Chinese spy balloon passed over parts of the United States and Canada back in 2023.

The concept Carpenter laid out for how balloons will be used in a future European conflict is another example of the renaissance in lighter-than-air military technology and how the Pentagon is increasingly seeking to weaponize it on a grand scale.

Contact the author: howard@twz.com

US secretary of state says Ukraine has requested access to military-grade version of Starlink for strikes deep inside Russia.

United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said Starshield, the military-grade version of the Starlink satellite service, is currently unavailable to Ukraine, but a request from Kyiv to access the system for attacks deep inside Russia is “under discussion”.

Speaking to reporters on Saturday, Rubio stressed Starshield’s distinction with Starlink, the internet service provided by Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

“Starlink is a commercial product, okay? And so it’s regulated and handled as a commercial product. Starshield is a defence product, a military product,” said Rubio, in comments released by the Department of State.

“They’ve asked for access to it in order to conduct deep strikes inside of Russia. They do not have access to it at this moment,” he added. “That’s under conversation.”

Launched in 2022 and provided to the US government, Starshield is designed for military use as it allows for deeper encryption to process sensitive information. SpaceX says it is primarily used by US defence agencies and other “government partners”.

Last week, Ukrainian officials said restrictions on Starlink terminals had slowed some drones on the battlefield, as Ukraine tries to hold back Russian forces in their nearly five-year war.

In his comments at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, Rubio also rejected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s suggestion that the reported disruption to Starlink services in Ukraine on Wednesday was deliberate.

“Well, I don’t know what Zelenskyy said. I’m not sure Zelenskyy knows what he’s talking about, but it wasn’t deliberate. We have nothing to do with that,” Rubio said.

Zelenskyy said on Saturday that the satellites are not tracking antennas on flying objects travelling faster than 161 kilometres per hour (100 miles per hour). This is affecting Ukrainian drones in their defence against Russian jet-powered drones and in their own medium-range attacks, he added.

Rubio said the US had not ordered Starlink speeds to be reduced and that the service had reportedly been restored to its previous level.

“No one at the White House ordered anyone to slow down internet or slow down speed so that certain drones couldn’t use it,” he said, calling the reports “categorically false”.

The remarks came as US President Donald Trump drew criticism from Democrats and Republicans after waiving sanctions on Russia and countries that buy its oil and gas, days before the restrictions were due to take effect under a law he signed last month.

Zelenskyy also criticised the sanctions waiver on Saturday, saying easing pressure on Russia would encourage further attacks.

“Financial rewards for [President Vladimir] Putin – all of this only encourages him to keep attacking,” Zelenskyy posted on social media, urging the US to maintain pressure on Moscow.