NEW YORK, October 14. /TASS/. The Starlink satellite system of US company SpaceX is not being used for offensive missions, only for defensive and civilian activities, the company’s head Elon Musk said.
"Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the US government. Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately [the president of the US] POTUS. Starlink is a commercial service owned and controlled by SpaceX. Usage of Starlink is limited to civilian or defensive activities and cannot be used for offensive military action, as doing so would be inappropriate for a commercial company," Musk wrote on the X social network, commenting on Ukrainian Defense Minister Mikhail Fyodorov’s post about the speed of Starlink and Starshield.
On Wednesday morning, Sergey Beskrestnov, an adviser to Vladimir Zelensky on communications and unmanned systems, reported that SpaceX had limited the speed of Starlink satellite Internet terminals used by the Ukrainian army to 160 km/h overnight. According to him, this disrupted "a number of operations." Later, Sergey Sternenko, a former advisor to Ukraine’s defense minister, reported further SpaceX restrictions on the use of Starlink satellite communication terminals’ operating speed down to 60-70 km/h.
Politico reported on October 13 that US President Donald Trump could cut off US intelligence support for Kiev or pressure Musk to disable SpaceX’s Starlink internet service, on which Ukraine’s military heavily relies. Zelensky said the same day that the US had not warned Ukraine about Russian missile launches the previous night.