Analysis: Ukraine’s Starshield access is still crippled, and no one is taking the blame

Eleven days after Ukraine's Starshield terminals started mysteriously malfunctioning, there is still nobody in Washington who wants to take responsibility, while Trump administration officials continue pointing fingers firmly at SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Oct. 23 that U.S. President Donald Trump had ordered Musk on Oct. 21 to lift the restrictions on Ukraine's Starshield terminals, claiming Trump was "frustrated the system's speeds remained capped at around 100 miles an hour", another indication that the SpaceX CEO has far more control over the military version of the Starlink satellite internet service than previously believed.

In remarks to reporters, Trump refused to confirm or deny ordering Musk to restore Ukraine's service, but claimed Musk had made the change. "Whether I called or whether somebody else called, doesn’t make any difference," Trump said.

"The bottom line, he put it back," he said.

Ukraine's Starshield terminals were still experiencing severe problems on Oct. 23, multiple Ukrainian officials told the Kyiv Independent, raising questions as to whether the U.S. government is actually in control of a piece of vital national security infrastructure, or whether, as multiple American government officials have claimed, control ultimately rests with Musk and SpaceX.

"Overall, there's no change anywhere," a senior Ukrainian official told the Kyiv Independent, when asked about whether Trump's intervention with Musk had solved the problems with Starshield..

"Starshield still doesn't work," a Ukrainian intelligence official confirmed to the Kyiv Independent. According to multiple military sources, the unpredictable "speed limit" that caps a terminal's speed at 160 kph — and in many cases, at much slower speeds — is still in place, severely hampering Ukrainian drone operations.

Ukraine uses Starshield terminals to control interceptor drones that counter Russia's jet-powered Geran drones, which Moscow has been using as part of a renewed terror-bombing campaign aimed at Ukrainian civilians and civilian infrastructure.

They are also used to control middle-range strike and logistics drones that are crucial for day-to-day operations on the front line. Despite popular misconceptions, they play no part in Ukraine's deep-strike campaign against Russian oil refineries.

"As of this morning, instances of connectivity loss at speeds of 161 km/h are still being observed. There is currently no confirmation that these restrictions have been lifted," a source in the Ukrainian Defense Ministry told the Kyiv Independent on Oct. 23.

In an interview with Fox News on Oct. 21, President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed he had been communicating with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio to try to fix the issues. "Regarding Starlink and Starshield: they are still restricted, but the secretary of state told me that he will work with his team to unblock this issue," Zelensky said.

Despite Ukrainian and U.S. officials apparently engaging in discussions to resolve the disruption to Ukrainian communications, nobody publicly has taken credit — or blame — for making or implementing the decision, which is not only politically "toxic" but also could have severe negative commercial implications for SpaceX, the operator of Starshield and Starlink.

Reporting in The Telegraph and the Wall Street Journal placed blame squarely on Musk's shoulders. Citing four sources familiar with the events, the Telegraph was the first to report that Musk was ultimately responsible, claiming Musk suggested restricting Ukrainian Starshield terminals to Trump, who "agreed" with the SpaceX CEO's suggestion.

Citing "U.S. officials and people familiar with the matter," the Wall Street Journal also reported that Musk ordered the slowdown, potentially after discussing it with Trump. But after the disruption became public, the White House refused a coordinated messaging strategy — leading to various figures in Washington pointing fingers at each other, as the political toxicity and potential legal consequences of helping Russia kill Ukrainian civilians by hobbling Ukrainian defenses became clear.

Musk himself attempted to shift responsibility to the Pentagon and the Trump administration for the slowdown, in a carefully crafted reply to former Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov in which he didn't explicitly rule out his involvement in the affair. "Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the US government," Musk said. "Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS."

Reuters reported that the order to restrict Starshield originated inside the White House and was relayed to Defense Department leaders, citing two U.S. officials and a Western official briefed on the matter.

Ukraine's embassy in Washington had attempted to get answers from both the Department of Defense and SpaceX, one Ukrainian government official told the Kyiv Independent, including high-level corporate contacts at SpaceX they had previously enjoyed a good relationship with, but were greeted with a wall of silence.

A number of sources familiar with the events previously told the Kyiv Independent they believed SpaceX and Musk were ultimately responsible for the restricting of Ukraine's Starshield, something which one source referred to as a "commercial decision."

Asked by journalists outside the White House on Oct. 19 who was responsible, Trump claimed ignorance: "I don't know who it was, but I'd like to find out," he said, appearing unconcerned about the unexplained malfunction in a critical piece of American national security infrastructure.

Other senior figures in the administration also denied responsibility and attempted to point the finger toward SpaceX, and ultimately, Musk.

Asked by journalists whether the administration was responsible for the problems with Starshield, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth claimed the administration had not "pulled anything back." and indicated any change had come from SpaceX. "There are terms of service that ultimately need to be complied with, and that's where Starlink has the option to make those decisions," Hegseth said. "But nothing's changed from our view. We haven't made any directives or anything like that.

In a response to journalists, Rubio appeared to claim that SpaceX had the ability to modify Starshield's operation independently of the Pentagon, contradicting Musk’s claim that Starshield limits are controlled by the U.S. government.

"The president has nothing to do with the decisions that are made by Starlink and Starshield and by Mr. Musk. That's a private company," Rubio said in comments to journalists during his recent trip to India. "We don't control what a private company… how they decide their product can be used," he said.

Earlier in the week, Rubio inaccurately claimed that Ukraine had never had access to Starshield. "Starshield is a defense product, a military product," Rubio said. "It's not, at this moment, available to Ukraine, and that's under conversation," he said. "I know Ukraine wants access to Starshield. They do not have Starshield now," Rubio continued.

Despite Rubio's claims, Ukraine has operated Starshield since 2024, as contemporary reporting made clear. Ukraine was initially given access to 500 Starshield terminals under a pilot program, Bloomberg reported in 2024. By the end of 2024, two separate Pentagon contracts with SpaceX were providing 3,000 terminals of the militarized version of SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet system.

American ambassador to NATO Matt Whitaker also attempted to shift the blame toward SpaceX and away from the administration. "They are a private company," Whitaker said in an interview with Fox News on Oct. 21. "Obviously they have terms of use that are applied to all of their customers, including the Ukrainians. I think it is more of a dispute along those lines than anybody in this administration trying to change how Starshield or Starlink is used," he said.