It was roughly 6 a.m. on Wednesday morning when Yehor, a Ukrainian soldier deployed near the battered northeastern city of Kupiansk, noticed the military-grade version of Starlink wasn't working properly on a drone he was piloting.
His unit suddenly lost touch with the explosives-laden drone, which was already flying toward a Russian logistics site Ukraine had decided to target, he told Newsweek.
The drone automatically reduced its speed in the skies above Ukraine's Kharkiv region, and the troops managed to claw back their connection. But it was for naught; they had missed their chance to reach their target in time, while the drone's battery was quickly depleted by the longer journey it was forced to make at a slower speed.
It emerged later on Wednesday that Starshield—Starlink's more secure sister satellite internet provider—was capped at a maximum speed of 160 kilometers per hour (100 mph), meaning the maximum speed for some of Ukraine's most-used drones was slashed in half. Russia's defenses then have more warning for incoming threats and can more easily shoot them down.
Both Starshield and Starlink are a creation of Elon Musk's SpaceX firm, and Ukrainian troops have relied on the thousands of satellites sitting in low-Earth orbit to fend off Russia's full-scale invasion since the early battles more than four and a half years ago.
Newsweek has contacted SpaceX and the White House via email.
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Ukraine's Ukrinform state news agency reported on Thursday Starshield was back up and running as normal. But Dimko Zhluktenko, a junior sergeant with Ukraine's 413th Unmanned Systems Regiment, told Newsweek that although Starshield-enabled drones are now able to fly faster than on Wednesday—when they flew at speeds around 90 kilometers per hour, according to Dimko—they are still limited to 160 kilometers per hour. There was no previous limit to Starshield in Ukraine.
But the incident highlights how vulnerable Ukraine's operations are to U.S. whims, with no viable alternative yet to Musk's orbiting constellation.
Without the access to Starshield Ukraine is used to, Kyiv has trouble making sure its aerial and sea drones can travel fast enough to hit Russian logistics, munitions depots as well as command and control centers up to around 200 kilometers (nearly 125 miles) from front-line clashes when buffeted by jammers.
It also hampers Ukraine's ability to intercept Russia's newer—and quicker—jet-powered, Iranian-designed Shahed drones as they bear down on its major cities, at a moment when Ukraine has celebrated reclaiming territory around the strategic eastern city of Lyman.
Starlink and Starshield are "baked into how the armed forces work," said James Westlake, the head of the U.K. team for Ukrainian intelligence firm, Molfar. They are "integral," he told Newsweek.
Ukrainian forces mostly use the general Starlink network for communications and data transfers, rather than guiding strikes on the battlefield, Westlake said.
The speed Ukraine can use for Starlink has long been capped and doesn't appear to have been impacted this week.
Kyiv was caught off-guard by the sudden changes to the Starshield system, officials said, further fueling concerns about the U.S. support for Ukraine against Russia ahead of what is expected to be another punishing winter for Ukraine's residents.
Compounding these fears, Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday that Ukraine wasn't alerted by its allies before Russian missile attacks on its capital for the second day in a row, prompting speculation the U.S. may have choked off Kyiv's access to intelligence—despite a denial from President Donald Trump.
Ukraine's systems "detected these missiles only when they were already virtually on approach to Kyiv," Zelensky said.
It's still not clear who is responsible for reining in Ukraine's access to high-speed Starshield, although Ukrainian sources said on Thursday the previous settings were being restored.
Musk 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 U.S. president.
The White House, meanwhile, has been tight-lipped amid bipartisan calls for clarity on both intelligence disclosures and Starshield settings.
Zelensky said Ukraine's Starlink access was "blocked by SpaceX and the United States."
'Partially Shifting the Balance of Power'
"For Ukrainian UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) operators targeting enemy logistics, these Starlink restrictions are partially shifting the balance of power against us," said Yehor, who was granted this level of anonymity to discuss politically sensitive matters.
Yehor said that after the initial incident with his drone on Wednesday morning, his team tried again—and the same thing happened. The team realized the issue was linked to speed constraints and attempted to carry on their missions with drones traveling slower.
But the trade-off is that the drones take longer to reach Russia's vital supply routes, or they struggle to smash into military gear Moscow transports across the parts of Ukraine it has seized.
"It's not simply about losing the video feed or control permanently," Yehor said. "It's about losing the speed advantage that previously allowed us to reach and strike targets quickly and effectively."
In real-life combat, he added, this can be the difference between a successful mission and one that fails.
Jet-Powered Drones
Ukraine uses its own jet-powered UAVs to knock upgraded Russian Shaheds from the sky before they can careen into buildings in its major cities.
With limits on Starshield, Ukraine risks jeopardizing its progress, while Russia's heavy bombardment of densely populated areas would face fewer Ukrainian defenses, Western analysts say.
Russia launched 580 drones, including Shaheds, across the country overnight, Ukraine's air force said early on Thursday. Five people were killed in the central Kirovohrad and Dnipropetrovsk regions, according to emergency services.
There were "constant waves" of Shahed attacks on Wednesday and Thursday, Zelensky said in a statement posted to social media. "Our sky was not clear of them for a single hour."
Kyiv's three main power plants are no longer producing electricity after Russian strikes on Ukraine's energy infrastructure, Ukrainian media reported on Thursday.
Zelensky had said on Wednesday Russian drones and hard-to-intercept ballistic missiles had targeted Ukraine's energy sector around the capital and in Kharkiv, despite Trump declaring an "energy ceasefire" at the weekend.
Russia's Defense Ministry said on Wednesday it had carried out a "massive strike" on four power plants in and around Kyiv, as well as an electrical substation. Moscow also said it had attacked two power plants in Kharkiv.
Ukraine didn't carry out any confirmed strikes on Russian oil refineries between Friday and Wednesday, but Russian authorities said on Thursday an oil facility had come under attack in a suspected Ukrainian operation.
Hours earlier, Zelensky said Kyiv was "done" with holding off on its attacks.
Separately, Ukraine said on Thursday it had destroyed four Russian Su-34 bombers and hit another two while parked in an airfield in the border Voronezh region. Each Su-34 costs tens of millions of dollars, and the aircraft have frequently dropped lethal glide bombs on Ukraine.
Ukraine has doggedly pursued Russia's oil refineries in an attempt to cut off Russia's revenue sources, which the Kremlin uses to prop up its war effort against Kyiv.
Simultaneously, Russia has carried out its own attacks on Ukraine's power plants, grain-exporting southern ports and its factories to cripple Kyiv's economy.
Trump said on Saturday he had told Zelensky to stop striking Russian oil refineries as Republicans stare down the midterm elections, wary of bills at the pump for many U.S. consumers remaining high.
The White House has painted rising U.S. diesel and gas prices on Ukraine rather than the U.S.-led war in Iran and Tehran's effective block on the Strait of Hormuz waterway, which have roiled the world's energy markets.
Reacting to a clip of Trump's Saturday comments, Musk wrote: "Zelensky has gone too far."
Contact Newsweek editor on this story: Yannick Demoustier