Trump says he didn’t meddle with Elon Musk’s Starshield in Ukraine as ties with Zelensky fracture

The worst crisis in US-Ukraine relations since last year’s Oval Office meltdown is deteriorating further over a dispute about who ordered a disruption to a critical Ukrainian military system running on Elon Musk’s Starlink internet service.

President Volodymyr Zelensky is meanwhile warning he will resume attacks on Russian oil refineries that President Donald Trump insists are worsening high diesel and gasoline prices ahead of US midterm elections.

The new rupture reflects a stark new reality for Ukraine as it fights for its life: Trump’s drive to defray the politically ruinous energy costs of his war, in Iran, is making it harder and more dangerous for Ukraine to win its own.

Trump lashed out at the Ukrainian leader in an interview with Newsmax on Thursday.

“I’m not a big fan of Zelensky. They’ve destroyed that country,” he said, apparently blaming the devastating results of the war on a nation defending itself against Russian invaders. “I find Zelensky to be more difficult to deal with than Putin.”

The Ukrainian leader repaid the compliment on Friday, praising the “real leaders” in Europe who stuck with him during the war.

This is not the first time that Zelensky and Ukraine have fallen afoul of Trump ahead of a US election. In a 2019 phone call, the president used the prospect of military aid to try to pressure Zelensky into opening an investigation into Joe Biden and his son Hunter. The move led to Trump’s first impeachment.

Ukraine’s latest entanglement in US politics is fueling concerns in Washington and Europe that the president is not just prioritizing his own political needs but is now taking a series of steps to actively help Putin.

The latest crisis between Washington and Kyiv started when Trump last Friday announced a sanctions-busting deal to buy diesel from Russia.

The Trump administration then warned Ukraine at the weekend that the US could halt intelligence-sharing for its military operations and block European purchases of US-made weapons if it did not stop long-range attacks on Russia’s refineries.

Amid a furious backlash, including among many Republicans, Trump announced a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine covering energy installations — but later signaled that he hadn’t informed the mystified combatants about it beforehand.

Ukraine observed the pseudo-truce, only for Russia to launch devastating air and drone strikes against its energy plants that left 600,000 people in the dark. On Tuesday, Zelensky said his government had not received its usual early warning from the US before a Russian ballistic missile attack hit a major power plant in Kyiv and damaged a residential building.

The showdown with Washington left Ukraine especially embittered because it came against a backdrop of relentless missile attacks on civilians that drew no significant US condemnation.

Katya Futyma, a 23-year-old resident of Kyiv, told CNN’s Jim Sciutto on Thursday that missile attacks in the capital were becoming increasingly scary. “You never know, like any second it could hit maybe your house, maybe your (neighbor’s) house,” she said. Asked why Russian ballistic missiles were now arriving without warning, she replied: “I think it’s political … the US had warned us before.”

The vulnerability of civilians was reinforced on Thursday when CNN reported that Ukraine has run out of missiles for the US-made Patriot air-defense system. Trump had earlier this year publicly raised the tantalizing possibility of licensing Ukraine to produce its own versions of the vital weapon. But he has not followed through on a step that would surely irritate Russia.

By Thursday, Zelensky’s patience had run out and he announced a resumption of attacks on Russian energy installations, which have led to lines at gas stations in parts of the country, as he seeks to increase pressure on Putin.

“We’re done,” he told the Financial Times in an interview. Zelensky accused the US of envisaging more deals with Putin, possibly for gas, which he predicted would be unpopular in America. “Everybody will want to ask how it can be when some people are surviving, fighting, dying — and you make … business with the guys with such aggression,” he told the paper.

Restrictions limited speed of Ukrainian drones

The drama over the SpaceX Starshield system, a military-grade version of Musk’s Starlink service, did not simply significantly escalate the furor in Washington and Kyiv. It raised fresh questions about the global role and influence of the world’s richest man, whose technologies have become indispensable in a new age of warfare.

Ukrainian generals were shocked by the limits on the Starshield system, which is owned and controlled not by Musk but by the US government.

The restrictions effectively limited the speed of Ukrainian military hardware, including drones, and reduced the military’s capacity to communicate and to operate war planes and helicopters. These curbs amounted to a significant military advantage to Russia’s forces on the battlefield.

There is a growing mystery in Washington over what led to the slowdown. Musk said in a post on X on Wednesday that “any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS.” But two senior US officials told CNN that the order to limit Starshield did not come from Trump. Some officials are increasingly convinced that Musk was in large part to blame.

Reuters reported on Thursday evening that the order to limit the satellite system came from inside the White House, citing two US officials and a Western official briefed on the matter.

Trump thickened the fog on Friday, telling reporters at the White House, “I didn’t do that” and saying he wasn’t sure there had been any speed restrictions on Ukraine’s use of Starshield.

“From what I understand, because I just checked this morning, I heard about it through the through the news, through the media, that we didn’t slow it down at all. And I think it’s probably functioning, from what I understand,” Trump said.

“Well, I don’t know if it was anybody, because it wasn’t me, and I don’t think it was Elon (Musk).”

Zelensky is in no doubt that the limits were deliberate. “It was not a technical problem,” he told the Financial Times. A Ukrainian military source told the paper that the full functionality of the system has now been restored and speed limits were lifted.

Doubts mount over Trump’s motives

The Starshield episode followed recent moves and rhetoric by Trump that have dismayed allies who believe the only path to ending the war lies in pressuring Putin — who launched an illegal invasion of Ukraine in 2022 in a bid to crush the former Soviet republic’s sovereignty.

Trump’s US critics argue that the diesel deal is just the latest example of his habit of appeasing Putin, since it will do little to lower prices before the midterm elections. But if followed through in its entirety, the agreement will inject billions of dollars into the Russian economy after years of international sanctions and will likely be used to bolster the Russian war machine.

“Trump is desperate to do anything to help improve his standing and the standing of Republicans running for the Senate in these midterm elections,” Delaware Democratic Sen. Chris Coons told CNN News Central on Wednesday.

As a strategic matter, the diesel deal is especially puzzling because, as CNN reported in March, Russia provided Iran with intelligence about the locations of US ships, aircraft and personnel earlier in the war. It also comes as Russia is accused of sabotage and harassment operations against US NATO allies. The head of MI5, Britain’s domestic intelligence service, this week warned Moscow had become “aggressor number one” and was conducting a campaign of hybrid warfare against the United Kingdom and its allies.

The administration says the president is still searching for openings to forge peace. “I think, actually, Putin wants to make a deal more than Zelensky,” Trump said on Monday.

But there has been no sign since Trump returned to office last year that Putin has moderated his position — that Ukraine should hand over critical territory in the country’s east that Kremlin forces have not captured — in return for an end to the war. This is a deal Zelensky could never make: It would dishonor Ukraine’s war dead and allow Russia to build a beachhead for a future invasion.

But there is an alternative interpretation of this latest blunt application of Trump’s “America First” policy.

Tom Keatinge, director of the Center for Finance and Security at the Royal United Services Institute in London, told CNN International on Thursday: “Donald Trump is putting his electoral position ahead of the security, the safety, the lives of Ukrainian people, and this should not be lost on viewers and on policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic.”

This article and headline have been updated with new reporting.

CNN’s Zachary Cohen contributed reporting.

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