Iran used Russian tech and Chinese research to jam Starlink? Inside Tehran’s playbook to enforce an internet blackout as Starlink’s packet loss surges to 80 per cent

Iran is witnessing massive street protests against the Mullah regime and a violent crackdown on the protestors. The Khamenei regime has imposed a complete blackout in the country, restricting anti-government protestors from accessing the internet. SpaceX activated its satellite internet, Starlink, in Iran to help protesters bypass the internet ban. However, now even Starlink is being shut down, reportedly using Russian technology and Chinese research.

Russia supplied the hardware.
China published the playbook.
Iran just proved it works.

Starlink: 80% packet loss.

Expert monitoring Iranian internet for 20 years: “I have never seen such a thing in my life.”

The “LEO satellites are unjammable” consensus?

Dead.

Wall Street… https://t.co/nxVpXHE2GC pic.twitter.com/Jd9S7y0dOG

— Shanaka Anslem Perera (@shanaka86) January 11, 2026

Iran government shut down the internet in hopes of crushing the protests but Starlink stunned the Mullah regime

The internet and social media have been crucial in communication and coordination among anti-government protestors in Iran. Taking note of the impact, the Mullah regime imposed a nationwide blackout on 8th January. The blackout started at around 6:45 pm UTC (10:15 pm local time) on Thursday, and Cloudflare Radar reported internet traffic in Iran had slumped to “effectively zero.

#Internet traffc in #Iran has dropped to effectively zero as of 18:45 UTC (22:15 PM local time), signaling a complete shutdown in the country, and disconnection from the global Internet.https://t.co/V77cj6rrQW pic.twitter.com/yZjOBqsGJm

— Cloudflare Radar (@CloudflareRadar) January 8, 2026

Before the imposition of a total blackout, a significant drop in IPv6 traffic was recorded, suggesting that the Iranian government was selectively shutting down the internet as protests intensified.

Iran’s internet shutdown is said to be highly sophisticated, selectively allowing specific government communications while cutting off most external access. Reports say that even VPNs and proxy services, which the Iranian people have historically used to bypass internet blackouts, are largely ineffective this time.

Proton VPN sessions originating in Iran are dipping, confirming the infrastructure which allows people to access the internet is being shut down.

Normally, Proton VPN helps people affected by censorship to circumvent it, but in this case, the internet has been shut off entirely. https://t.co/09pCzqqZ7R pic.twitter.com/9AamyvGgq5

— Proton VPN (@ProtonVPN) January 8, 2026

Popular government-monitored platforms like Rubika and Eita have also been shut down. Banking systems, ride-hailing apps, including Snapp and Tapsi, online shopping platforms, as well as international phone calls have been restricted in Iran. While this move was supposed to quell protests, locals say that boredom and frustration have only motivated more and more people to hit the streets against the Khamenei-led regime.

However, as Elon Musk’s SpaceX enabled Starlink in Iran for free on 9th January, protestors with smuggled Starlink terminals bypassed government-imposed restrictions and gained access to an uncensored internet. It must be recalled that Starlink has been a major workaround in the 2022 Mahsa Amini and the 2019 anti-government demonstrations in Iran. Tens of thousands of Starlink terminals were smuggled into Iran, as there is a ban on owning the device or using SpaceX’s satellite internet.

It is estimated that there are around 40,000 to 50,000 Starlink subscribers in Iran.

Iran government achieves startling success in jamming Starlink signals

Amidst a violent crackdown on anti-government protestors, the Iranian authorities are reported to have successfully jammed Starlink signals in many areas, causing massive disruptions. Experts have found that the Iranian regime is using military-grade jammers to cause packet loss on Starlink’s uplink and downlink traffic, rising from 30% to 80% by 9^th January.

The disruption caused by Iranian authorities includes interference with GPS signals, on which Starlink relies for terminal-satellite connections. This resulted in patchy or near-total internet outages in protest hotspots across Iran.

Internet researcher and Director of Internet Security and Digital Rights at the Miaan Group, Amir Rashidi, said that he has never come across, during his 20 years of research, the military-grade jammers the Iranian regime is using to block Starlink. Rashidi said that such a sophisticated technology was either provided to Iran by Russia or China, if it was not developed domestically.

“I have been monitoring and researching access to the internet for the past 20 years, and I have never seen such a thing in my life,” Rashidi said.

It is essential to note that blocking Starlink is not an impossible feat. Previously, Russia has been able to jam Starlink internet in Ukraine. However, Iran pulling this off at such a massive scale is quite surprising, ending the myth of ‘LEO’ or Low Earth Orbit satellite constellations being nearly impossible to jam.

While there is no official confirmation from Russia’s, Iran’s or China’s end, reports suggest that Iran’s ‘Kill Switch’ tactic has resulted from a combo of Russian hardware, Chinese tech manual and Iran’s testing ground.

However, this ‘Kill Switch’ approach adopted by the Iranian regime, the experts estimate, is draining the country’s fragile economy of $1.56 million for every hour of internet shutdown.

Notably, the jamming technology is sophisticated and unprecedented and reportedly involves Electronic Warfare (EW) systems delivered by Russia, particularly, the Murmansk-BN and/or Krasukha-4 systems. Russia has been developing EWs for decades, and has deployed three major EW systems: Krasukha-4 for radar jamming, Leer-3 for disrupting cellular networks and Murmansk-BN for strategic electronic disruption. Russia has used these systems in its ongoing war against Ukraine and has managed to disrupt Starlink in Ukraine, though not permanently. Russia’s success in causing Starlink internet jamming prompted SpaceX to deploy software updates to mitigate it.

Besides Russia, China, which can launch an offensive in Taiwan anytime, has also researched Starlink countermeasures through synchronised jamming from multiple ground stations. In November 2025, Chinese researchers reportedly simulated jamming Starlink internet in case of a potential conflict in Taiwan.

In their research titled: Simulation research of distributed jammers against mega-constellation downlink communication transmissions, Chinese researchers found that it would take about 1,000 to 2,000 airborne devices to effectively jam the Starlink internet system.

“The orbital planes of Starlink are not fixed, and the movement trajectories of the constellation are highly complex, with the number of satellites entering the visible area constantly changing. This spatiotemporal uncertainty poses a significant challenge for any third party attempting to monitor or counter the Starlink constellation,” the study reads.

 “A grid-based deployment approach for jammers is adopted to enhance the spatial distribution flexibility of the adversarial side, along with a jamming probability calculation method and a jamming effectiveness evaluation metric. Based on actual satellite operation data, taking the Starlink system as an example, the jamming coverage range is calculated under different conditions of radio frequency power, grid spacing, and antenna radiation patterns. Simulation results show that when the node transmission power is 26 dBW, the average jamming coverage per node can reach 38.5 km², providing support for the regulation and management of mega-constellations,” states the study by Zheijang University and Beijing Institute of Technology researchers Gu Hanqing, Yang Zhuo, Zhang Peng, and Wen Xiaowen.

Being heavily-sanctioned and constantly at loggerheads with the US and Israel, in addition to mounting domestic discontent, the Mullah regime in Iran has for years been upgrading its internet control capabilities. The Iranian government intends to develop a national intranet akin to China’s Great Firewall. While Starlink was used by many Iranian people during last year’s Israel-Iran conflict amidst internet shutdown, this is the first time that Iranian authorities have effectively targeted the satellite internet service on this scale in the country.

Needless to say, SpaceX will come up with countermeasures, including frequency hopping or beam adjustments, among others, to counter the interference by Iranian authorities.  

Economic crisis, hyperinflation and oppressive Islamist Mullah regime: Iran’s protests triggered by economic downslide

What began as a localised strike by shopkeepers and bazaar traders in Tehran on 28th December 2025 soon snowballed into protests spreading across almost all of the 31 provinces in Iran. Slogans like “Death to Dictator,” referring to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, are being raised on the streets of Iran even as the Islamic Revolutionary Guards continue to hunt down agitators. Calls for the return of Iran’s exiled Shah Reza Pahlevi are also being made. So far, over 500 people, including children, have been killed. Meanwhile, around 48 security personnel have also lost their lives.

According to the US-based Human Rights Activists News (HRANA), more than 10,600 people have been arrested by the Mullah regime.

The ongoing protests in Iran are primarily triggered by a serious economic crisis, although regime change voices are also significantly loud. The immediate trigger is the dramatic collapse of the Iranian Rial (Iran’s currency), which plunged to a historic low of around 1.42–1.45 million to the US dollar. The Rial lost nearly half of its value in 2025 alone.

It is notable that Rial was never in a very strong position against the US dollar, as when Mohammad Reza Farzin took charge as the Central Bank’s chief, the exchange rate of Rial was 430,000 to the USD. However, the sudden drop to 1.42 million showed the quagmire the Iranian currency has descended into.

This record depreciation of the Iranian currency is fuelled by prolonged international sanctions, slashed oil revenues after the June 2025 clash with Israel, and domestic economic mismanagement. The depreciation of the Iranian currency’s exchange rate is reported to have been significantly triggered by the government’s liberalisation policies.

Resultantly, Iran is grappling with hyperinflation, with official rates surging 42.2% in December 2025 and food prices reaching an alarming high of 72% year-on-year, while medical goods rose by 50%.

With growing reliance on imports, failure to access frozen funds abroad and foreign exchange, Iran’s economy is in deep trouble. The country’s GDP growth dropped from 5.7% in 2023 3.7% in 2024 and to a projected 0.6% in 2026, as per the IMF.

Due to eroding purchasing power, millions of people are struggling to afford basic goods, food, and healthcare. Besides the unbearable living costs, what has further exacerbated the situation is the impending tax hikes in the new Iranian year. The Iranian taxpayers fear that their condition is going to worsen further after tax levies are raised.