KYIV — Ukraine’s army woke on Wednesday to a speed limit on its satellite lifeline that nobody had announced, and by morning some drone missions had failed.
Serhii Beskrestnov, an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on defense technology, said SpaceX had capped the military-grade version of Starlink overnight, cutting service to terminals moving faster than about 100 mph, or 160 km/h. “Our defence forces did not receive a warning about this limitation and this led to the disruption of several missions,” he wrote on Telegram, according to Euronews.
What is unknown is who decided. Beskrestnov called the timing “connected to the current political situation,” NBC News reported, but neither SpaceX nor the White House has explained the change, and Ukraine says its requests for an explanation have gone unanswered.
Ukraine’s armed forces learned of the limit from SpaceX customer support after filing a complaint, NBC News reported. The 7th Rapid Reaction Corps said drones that use Starlink in flight were harder to control, and a unit in Zaporizhzhia canceled some operations. Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said the restriction hits Starshield “military package” terminals while in motion, hurting frontline logistics, reconnaissance and signal relay, and that it is testing backup channels, CBS News reported.
Speculation filled the gap. Sergey Sternenko, a former adviser to Ukraine’s defense minister, said on Telegram the move may have followed a request from the Trump administration, TASS reported; no evidence for that has been published. Poland’s foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, wrote to Elon Musk: “As your European customers, we are watching you.” Musk has called Starlink the “backbone” of Ukraine’s army and said the “entire front line would collapse” without it, NBC noted, and this year he agreed to switch off thousands of Russian-used terminals in Ukraine.
The change landed beside another gap. Zelenskyy says Kyiv received no advance warning of Russian missile strikes this week, CBS sources said the United States may have withheld early warnings, and Trump says intelligence sharing continues. EH reported Zelenskyy’s account that Washington had threatened to cut intelligence over refinery strikes.
A company’s terms of service, a government’s request or a technical fault: Ukrainian officials have offered each. Nothing public yet says which.
