Pro-Ukrainian partisans disable military communication infrastructure in Russia's Belgorod Oblast, group claims

The pro-Ukrainian Atesh partisan group disabled communication infrastructure in Russia's Belgorod Oblast, the group claimed early on Feb. 8.

"An agent of our movement set fire to a hardware module at the base of a communication tower. As a result of the destruction of the ground equipment, all the infrastructure installed on the mast was completely de-energized and put out of action," the Atesh group announced.

The act of sabotage was conducted near Ukraine's border with Russia and "effectively blinded the enemy in this sector," the group said in a Telegram post.

Meanwhile, with control equipment disabled, the front line in the area has created an opportunity for Ukrainian forces to circumvent signal jamming, Atesh claimed.

"The tower served as a platform for electronic warfare antennas that suppressed drone signals. The destruction of this technical post opened a 'window' for the unimpeded operation of Ukrainian" drones, the group said.

On Feb. 5, Russian forces were cut off from access to Starlink satellite internet across the front line with the introduction of a new "white list."

Ukraine and SpaceX worked to block Russian access to the Starlink service within Ukraine using a mass registration scheme on the government services application Diia.