Key takeaways:
- Zelenskyy says satellite connections in Ukraine stop working above 161 km/h, disrupting drone operations.
- Rubio says Ukraine has never had Starshield access and denies that the United States ordered Starlink speeds reduced.
- Ukraine says it cannot confirm that the capabilities it needs have been restored.
Ukraine cannot use its satellite-linked interceptor systems against fast Russian drones because connections cut out above a speed limit, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio denied that Washington had ordered any slowdown and said a separate military satellite service Ukraine wants is not available to it.
Zelenskyy said the connection stops working in Ukraine when equipment moves faster than 161 kilometres per hour (100 miles per hour), disrupting drone operations and communications. He said Ukraine could still use aircraft and other air defenses against jet-powered Russian Shahed drones, but could not use Starlink or Starshield technology for that purpose.
“Here Starlink works up to a speed of 161 km/h, then shuts off,” Zelenskyy told reporters in an online group chat. “We lose both drones and connectivity.” He said the service continued operating at speeds above 180 km/h in European Union territory.
Rubio drew a distinction between Starlink, SpaceX’s commercial satellite internet service, and Starshield, its military-grade product. Ukraine has never had access to Starshield, he said, but has requested it to conduct strikes deep inside Russia. That request is “under discussion.”
“Nobody ordered that Starlink speed to be slowed down,” Rubio told reporters at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. He said he understood the service had been restored to its previous level and rejected the suggestion that the disruption was deliberate.
Zelenskyy said Ukrainian military, defense and diplomatic officials had raised the issue with U.S. counterparts and SpaceX. He said they had been told the restrictions were technical but had not received an answer from SpaceX. Ukraine’s chargé d’affaires in the United States, Denys Sienik, told CBS News later Saturday that Kyiv had not received confirmation from the Pentagon or SpaceX that unrestricted speeds or the capabilities it sought had been restored. “Based on the data currently available to us, we cannot confirm that these capabilities have been fully restored,” he said.
Ukrainian officials and soldiers began experiencing sudden difficulties with equipment late Tuesday, CBS News reported. Sources in Ukraine’s Defense Ministry told the network that SpaceX had imposed the restrictions unilaterally. SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk wrote Wednesday that Starshield systems were owned and controlled by the U.S. government and that any limits were decided by the U.S. military and ultimately the president. President Donald Trump said Friday that he had not restricted Ukraine’s access to Starlink and did not think Musk had done so.
The dispute comes amid renewed Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy system. Zelenskyy said Russia struck more than 15 critical power generation and transmission facilities on Saturday. He also criticized a U.S. waiver of restrictions on buying Russian diesel, saying reduced financial pressure would encourage Russian President Vladimir Putin to keep attacking. Zelenskyy said he believed further sanctions relief would follow.
The White House said enforcing the sanctions provisions now would impede efforts to negotiate a peace agreement, while Trump retained the authority to use them later. Trump has said Russia and Ukraine agreed to stop attacking each other’s energy infrastructure. Zelenskyy said Ukraine was initially willing to comply but that Russian strikes continued; the Russian government never confirmed an agreement.
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