“We lose Starlink and lose the interceptor,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters on 17 October, Bloomberg reported.
Zelenskyy said speed limits on Starshield, SpaceX’s military satellite network, remained in place across Ukraine. Ukraine’s interceptor drones lose the link above 161 km/h (100 mph), he said in audio messages on WhatsApp. The Russian jet-powered drones they chase fly at about 400 km/h.
Ukraine sent Starshield-connected vehicles into Europe for speed tests, and they worked normally there, Zelenskyy said. He called the restriction “a planned operation”.
What the cap does
The failures began overnight into 14 October, with no notice to Ukraine’s armed forces, a defence ministry official told reporters in Kyiv. Terminals in motion dropped out at between 72 km/h and 161 km/h, depending on vehicle and unit, Politico Europe reported.
Ukraine’s 7th Rapid Response Corps said its pilot saw the link drop for 10 to 20 seconds at 110 to 120 km/h, the Financial Times reported. Slower drones were harder to launch and easier for Russian air defences to hit. The unit cancelled some missions.
A medium-range strike commander told Politico the cap halted his unit’s Hornet drone strikes. Those include strikes relayed through a mesh network by a single Starlink-equipped drone, which lets them reach targets behind Russian electronic warfare. Russia has already tried to jam Starlink to counter Ukraine’s drones.
“This is comparable to a nuclear strike against us. All operations are on hold,” the officer said.
Who set the limit
Elon Musk, SpaceX’s chief executive, said on 14 October that the US government controls Starshield.
“Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the US government. Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS,” Musk wrote on X.
On 15 October, Reuters reported that the order came from inside the White House, citing two US officials. A day later, The Telegraph reported that Musk had approached Trump with the idea of speed limits, citing four sources. One said Trump “agreed”, which paved the way for the Pentagon to carry out the slowdown, the paper reported. TNW has not independently verified either report.
“He tweeted out that he was innocent and that it was the US administration that did it. The reality is that they were both in it,” a senior source told The Telegraph.
“I don’t know if it was anybody because it wasn’t me, and I don’t think it was Elon,” US President Donald Trump told reporters on 16 October, CNBC reported.
The Pentagon has not publicly explained the restrictions, The Telegraph reported.
Restored, or not
A Ukrainian official told Axios on 15 October that Starlink and Starshield were back at full capacity. Zelenskyy gave a different account a day later.
“Have they returned to the previous speed limits? No. But is it coming back now? Yes,” Zelenskyy said in Brussels, The Telegraph reported.
By 17 October, he said the cap was still on. Europe’s own IRIS² satellite network is due by 2030, The Telegraph reported. In September, Europe’s biggest mobile carriers were in talks on a Starlink rival.