Musk Admits SpaceX Throttled Starlink in Ukraine, Says Kyiv Broke Rules With Drone Strikes
Zelenskyy says speeds are back to normal after more than a week of restrictions that commanders say cost them drones and disrupted missions at the front.
Elon Musk said Saturday that his company SpaceX throttled the Starlink satellite internet service in Ukraine, confirming he was behind restrictions that disrupted front-line operations for more than a week.
Musk's admission on X came after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine's access to Starlink and Starshield satellite links had been restored to the speeds it had before the restrictions. "The speeds are now where they need to be," Zelenskyy wrote, adding that restoration began overnight and was sufficient by Saturday morning, improving front-line logistics and defense against Russian jet-powered Shahed drones.
Questions had lingered since last week about who ordered the interruptions to the system Kyiv has relied on for years to counter Moscow's attacks. President Trump had said he did not make the call while also saying Musk should not be blamed. On Tuesday, CBS News reported that Musk was behind the disruption.
In his Saturday post, Musk defended the move. "Using Starlink, a civilian commercial service, for offensive drone strikes to kill people has never been allowed, nor should it be," he wrote. "Ukraine military violated Starlink terms of service and used it for offensive drone strikes to kill people. That loophole was closed last week."
He maintained, however, that the U.S. government controlled whatever changes happened with Starshield, SpaceX's military-grade version of Starlink and the backbone of Ukraine's drone operations and communications. He also defended SpaceX's role in bolstering Ukraine's defenses since Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022.
The restrictions on Starshield alarmed Ukraine's military and government, with commanders reporting lost drones and disrupted missions. Ukrainian officials credited what one of them, Khmara, called "direct dialogue" and Zelenskyy's diplomacy with Washington for the fix, saying the outcome mattered most "for our front, for the military, the work of drones, logistics and communications." Zelenskyy thanked Americans and "all our partners, who took all this seriously and are really helping us."
The restoration follows a new U.S. diplomatic push to end the war. Russia agreed Wednesday to resume three-way negotiations with Washington and Kyiv next month. On Friday, Kyiv and Moscow also agreed to a localized ceasefire around Oleshky, a war-ravaged, Russian-occupied town in the southern Kherson region, brokered by first lady Melania Trump.
The episode added to tension between Kyiv and Washington, a relationship already strained by Trump's reported deal with Moscow on Russian diesel imports, which Ukraine viewed as a betrayal. It also underlined how much of Ukraine's war effort depends on infrastructure controlled by a single private company, whose owner can change the terms of service, and in this case the speeds, with consequences on the battlefield within days.
