Ukraine says its Starlink and Starshield satellite links are back at full speed, ending more than a week of restrictions that disrupted front-line communications and drone operations.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced on Saturday, October 24, that restoration had begun overnight and that speeds were sufficient by Saturday morning. “The speeds are now where they need to be,” he wrote on X, adding that the restoration mattered “for our frontline logistics, for defending Ukraine against jet-powered Shaheds.”
Defense Minister Yevhenii Khmara said the ministry’s monitoring systems were recording stable connections at speeds exceeding 400 kilometers per hour — a figure that refers to the movement-speed threshold at which terminals and drones can stay connected, not to internet download speeds.
What was restricted
The restrictions began around October 14, without warning, according to Ukrainian officials. Starshield, the military-grade version of Starlink, was reportedly capped so that connections dropped when terminals or drones moved faster than about 160 kilometers per hour (100 mph).
Ukrainian commanders said the cap hampered efforts to intercept Russian attack drones and forced some operations to be cancelled. The episode laid bare how dependent Ukraine’s military has become on a single private company’s satellite constellation since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Musk’s admission
After Ukraine announced the restoration, SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk acknowledged on Saturday that his company had throttled the civilian Starlink service.
“Using Starlink, a civilian commercial service, for offensive drone strikes to kill people has never been allowed, nor should it be,” Musk wrote on X. “Ukraine military violated Starlink terms of service and used it for offensive drone strikes to kill people. That loophole was closed last week.”
Musk maintained, however, that the U.S. government controlled whatever changes happened with Starshield, the government and military service that forms the backbone of Ukraine’s drone operations and communications. He also defended SpaceX’s role in bolstering Ukraine’s defenses since 2022.
President Donald Trump, who had sought information about the slowdown, told reporters he had raised the matter with Musk. Trump declined to discuss the call in detail, saying: “Whether I called or whether somebody else called, doesn’t make any difference, I guess. The bottom line — he put it back.” CNN reported that Trump asked Musk in a phone call in recent days to restore Ukraine’s full access to Starshield.
A caveat on the restoration
The restoration may not yet be uniform. CNN reported that one source on the ground in Ukraine’s Donetsk region said Saturday morning that speeds in their area continued to be limited to 160 kilometers per hour, even as officials in Kyiv announced the restoration. Ukraine’s defense ministry said it is continuing to monitor performance.
Analysts say lifting the limit, if it holds across the front, will significantly increase Ukraine’s ability to use jet-powered interceptor drones and strike targets deep in the area of operations, according to Michael Kofman of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
The restoration follows a new U.S. diplomatic push to end the war. Russia agreed on Wednesday to resume three-way negotiations with Washington and Kyiv next month, and Kyiv and Moscow agreed on Friday to a localized ceasefire brokered by first lady Melania Trump around Oleshky, a war-ravaged, Russian-occupied town in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region.
The episode has renewed a broader debate: whether any single private individual should hold the power to degrade a nation’s wartime communications — and what guarantees, if any, can prevent it from happening again.
Sources: Associated Press, CNN, Reuters via The Hindu Business Line, statements by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Elon Musk on X.
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