Dispute over Starshield limits in Ukraine: Trump says service restored, Kyiv disagrees
US President Donald Trump says Starshield, the military version of Starlink used by Ukraine, is running at full speed again, but Ukrainian and European officials say they have not seen this. The Trump administration and Elon Musk are blaming each other for the restrictions.
Ukrainian officials say access to Starshield, the military-grade version of the Starlink satellite service run by SpaceX, has been restricted over the past week. US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that the service was again running at full speed, but a European official told the Associated Press it was not fully functioning. Kyiv says the limits have left many of the drones it uses to hit targets behind the front line inoperable and have hampered air defence systems.
Who is responsible?
Last Friday Trump denied any responsibility, saying it was not him and he did not think it was Musk. Secretary of state Marco Rubio said on Wednesday that neither the president nor anyone in the US government had asked for changes to the system, while stressing that Starlink and Starshield belong to a private company the president cannot direct.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump had asked Musk to restore the service, and the president later told reporters the system was "back". Asked whether he had spoken to Musk, he declined to comment, but suggested Musk had put it back. Republican senator John Cornyn said he did not believe Musk would have acted without at least the acquiescence of the White House.
Musk, SpaceX's chief executive and one of the Republican party's biggest donors, wrote on X last week that the systems are owned and controlled by the US government, and that any limits on speed or usage are set by the US military and ultimately the president. The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that Musk himself ordered the slowdown; its sources disagreed on whether this was coordinated with Trump. Vice-president JD Vance backed Musk.
Situation in Ukraine
An unnamed Ukrainian official told the Kyiv Independent that speeds were still capped and that "nothing has changed". Overnight, Russia struck energy sites in six Ukrainian regions, leaving more than 500,000 people without power. Russia's defence ministry confirmed strikes on the port of Vilkovo in the Odesa region, a railcar depot in Poltava and a cargo vessel in the Black Sea.
