Ukraine’s military has suddenly had its access to Starlink satellite internet terminals restricted as the Trump administration has increased pressure on Ukraine to halt long-range strikes on Russia’s oil industry immediately. The terminals, which are distributed and managed by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, are a key component of Ukraine’s military operations and the sudden restrictions on the terminals travelling at high speeds on Tuesday evening led to the failure of several combat missions, said an adviser on military technology to Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The sudden outage came as Russia launched ballistic missiles at Ukraine without any advance warning from the US for a second night.
For years, the US has provided Ukraine with intelligence when strikes were about to take place. Donald Trump has denied that his administration has cut intelligence sharing with Ukraine. Zelenskyy also indicated that the US was continuing to share intelligence with Ukraine in an interview with NPR aired on Wednesday, but confirmed that military advisers had received threats from the US that intelligence sharing could be limited.
Ukraine did not receive any warning before Russia launched its first barrage of ballistic missiles on Tuesday evening, according to Col Yurii Ihnat, a spokesperson for the air force. But it did receive warnings from “foreign partners” about three subsequent barrages, leaving further confusion about whether or not the US is intentionally withholding intelligence from Ukraine. SpaceX did not confirm any changes to Starlink’s functionality and it was not immediately clear why the restrictions had been put in place.
Terminals travelling at more than 100mph and using a version of Starlink for the military and other national security agencies suddenly lost connectivity, said Serhiy Beskrestnov, in what appeared to be a targeted outage meant to disrupt military operations. Shahed interception rates had already dropped from more than 90% to about 60% when Russia upgraded their engines to jet power in the early summer. But there have been no reports that access for static Starlink terminals has been cut, meaning critical battlefield communications for soldiers should remain unaffected.
The detection of incoming Russian missiles and drones relies on other technologies. Musk, an ally of Trump, had previously cut off Starlink service to Ukrainian soldiers during an offensive that took a small amount of Russian territory. Musk has supported Trump’s calls for Zelenskyy to be replaced as Ukraine’s leader – an extraordinary act of political interference against a wartime ally – as a personal feud between the two presidents has burst into the open.
The reports that Starlink was being throttled on the frontlines were interpreted by some as further pressure on Ukraine to end the fighting and make a deal with Russia at any cost. Serhii Sternenko, a political activist with close ties to the military, first reported the outage and later said that the speeds at which the loss of connectivity occurred had fallen even lower. Zelenskyy had suggested, though not said, that the US was intentionally withholding intelligence from Ukraine about impending Russian missile strikes.
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