Amid the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, Elon Musk said Kyiv violated the terms of SpaceX’s commercial Starlink service by using it for offensive drone strikes, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Starlink and Starshield operations had been restored to the speeds available before recent restrictions were imposed.
“Using Starlink, a civilian commercial service, for offensive drone strike operations is explicitly a violation of the terms of use,” the company's CEO wrote in a statement posted to X Saturday. “Ukraine military violated Starlink terms of service and used it for offensive drone strikes to kill people. That loophole was closed last week.”
Musk added that the commercial service is limited to “civilian or defensive use.”
The terms of use on Starlink's website say in part, "Starlink Kits and Services are commercial communication products. Off-the-shelf, Starlink can provide communication capabilities to a variety of end-users, such as consumers, schools, businesses and other commercial entities, hospitals, humanitarian organizations, non-governmental and governmental organizations in support of critical infrastructure and other services, including during times of crisis."
"However, Starlink is not designed or intended for use with or in offensive or defensive weaponry or other comparable end-uses," the website reads.
SpaceX fixed communications outages that emerged after the restriction was first introduced, but the 100-mph cap remained, Serhii Beskrestnov, a defense technology adviser to Zelensky, told the Associated Press. Reuters separately reported, citing a person in Ukraine’s defense ministry, that the receivers had resumed working while in motion but only at speeds of up to 100 mph.
Zelensky, meanwhile, said in a video posted to X that Starlink and Starshield, SpaceX's military-grade system used by Ukraine, were again operating at the speeds Ukraine needed.
"I thank all Americans and all our partners who took this seriously and truly helped – members of Congress, senators, all the media, the State Department, and the President," Zelensky said. "Protecting lives matters."
The dispute highlights Ukraine’s reliance on satellite communications for military operations as the war with Russia continues.
Ukrainian officials said access to Starlink had been restricted without advance warning and that SpaceX had placed a speed limit on Starlink terminals in Ukraine earlier this month, disrupting battlefield operations.
Ukraine has targeted Russian oil and gas facilities in an effort to curb energy revenue used to finance Moscow’s war. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Ukrainian refinery attacks have cost Russia roughly 1 percent of its gross domestic product.
Moscow, meanwhile, has continued targeting Ukrainian energy infrastructure.
President Donald Trump has pressured Ukraine to stop striking Russian oil facilities as high diesel prices remain an issue in the United States ahead of the midterm elections. In Newsweek’s earlier reporting, Trump blamed Ukraine’s attacks for contributing to those prices, while his administration moved to allow Russian diesel back onto global markets and relaxed sanctions to authorize imports into the U.S.
The controversy comes against a backdrop of tensions between Zelensky and the Trump administration.
In February 2025, Zelensky and Vice President JD Vance discussed the White House's push for negotiations to end the war, with Zelensky saying Ukraine needed “security guarantees” and Vance saying the U.S. wanted a “durable, lasting peace.”
Days later, following a contentious Oval Office encounter involving Trump, Vance and Zelensky, Trump said the Ukrainian leader “doesn’t want to make a deal” and needed to be “more appreciative.”
Tensions have continued to rise more recently. On Monday, Trump said Zelensky was “not helping” efforts to end the war that began in February 2022 and suggested someone else should negotiate for Ukraine.
Newsweek reached out to the White House for comment by email on Saturday.
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White House Denies Ordering Slowdowns as Musk Defends SpaceX's Role in Ukraine
Musk has said Starshield systems are "owned and controlled" by the U.S. government, meaning "any limits on speed or usage" are dictated by the U.S. military, and, ultimately, the president.
Reuters reported on October 22, citing two U.S. officials and a Western official briefed on the matter, that the order to slow the Starshield service used by Ukraine came from inside the White House. The officials did not identify who made the decision.
However, a senior U.S. official told Reuters that “no such request was ever made by the president,” while Zelensky said on October 18 that the instruction came from the U.S. government and was technically implemented by SpaceX.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio also disputed suggestions that the U.S. government was responsible for decisions involving Starlink. Rubio said the United States and Trump had “nothing to do” with Starlink’s decisions after Ukrainian claims that speed restrictions had been imposed.
“Starlink remains critical to the defense of Ukraine, as it is the only system that cannot be jammed or blown up, at least for now. Were Starlink to be turned off, the Ukrainian front line would collapse immediately,” Musk wrote on Saturday. “This is NOT a threat, it is simply a statement of fact.”
Musk added: “SpaceX has done more to defend Ukraine than any private company on Earth BY FAR. That said, I have nothing but UTTER CONTEMPT for the virtue-signaling evil warmongers who push for endless slaughter and offer no realistic solution to the conflict. May you burn in hell.”
Lawmakers Request Investigation
A bipartisan group of nine senators wrote to the Pentagon’s inspector general earlier this month requesting an investigation into “whether actions or decisions by the Department of Defense or its contractors contributed to these dangerous circumstances.”
The lawmakers included Republican Senators Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine, John Cornyn of Texas and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, with Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire leading the group.
“Any restrictions on these capabilities, particularly without advance notification, raise serious questions about the Department of Defense’s contractual oversight and its responsibility to ensure continuity of essential services,” the senators wrote.
Representative Mike Turner, an Ohio Republican who serves on the House Armed Services Committee, said on October 18 that Congress needed to establish what happened to technology relied on by Ukraine for battlefield communications and drone operations.
“There needs to be an investigation. There needs to be a congressional investigation,” he told CBS News’ Face the Nation.
Newsweek’s reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story. Learn more about Martyn here. Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Anthony Murray and Steve Mollman.