Musk says Ukraine broke Starlink terms as speeds restored

Elon Musk said on Saturday, Oct. 24, that Ukraine's military broke Starlink's terms of service by using the satellite network for offensive drone strikes, and that the "loophole was closed last week." He posted the claim on X hours after Kyiv said its satellite links were back to full speed. The post was the closest thing yet to an admission of where the throttling came from. For more than a week, neither SpaceX nor Washington had taken responsibility for slowdowns that Ukrainian commanders said cost them drones and missions, the Associated Press reported.sfchronicle.com

What Musk said

"Using Starlink, a civilian commercial service, for offensive drone strikes to kill people has never been allowed, nor should it be," Musk wrote, according to India Today. He said Starshield, the military version, "is controlled by the US government. What they decide to do is up to them." He also argued that Ukraine still depends on the network. "Were Starlink to be turned off, the Ukrainian front line would collapse immediately. This is NOT a threat, it is simply a statement of fact," he wrote, RBC-Ukraine reported. He ended the post by saying he had "UTTER CONTEMPT" for "virtue-signaling evil warmongers."indiatoday.in+1

Service restored

Earlier that day, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Starlink and Starshield were working at their pre-restriction speeds again. "The speeds are now at the level we need," he said, Reuters reported. Ukraine's Defense Ministry said connections stayed stable on equipment moving faster than 400 kph. Since Oct. 14, officials had complained that any drone flying faster than about 160 kph lost its link, according to CNBC. The restrictions hampered efforts to intercept Russian attack drones and forced some operations to be cancelled.cnbc.com+1

Ukraine pushes back

Ukrainians pushed back on Musk's account. Serhii Sternenko, a former Defense Ministry adviser, said the claim was "not true." He explained that since February, any terminal used on the move has had to be whitelisted and connected to Starshield, so drone missions over commercial Starlink were "technically impossible," the Kyiv Independent reported. Presidential adviser Serhii Beskrestnov said commercial terminals in Ukraine are already capped at 70 to 90 kph and do not work on Russian territory.kyivindependent.com

It is still unclear who ordered the slowdown. Reuters has reported that the order to throttle Starshield came from inside the White House, India Today noted. The Wall Street Journal News Corp ↘ 2.12% reported that President Donald Trump told Musk on Oct. 21 to lift the caps, the Kyiv Independent wrote. Trump has said he did not make the call. Vice President JD Vance has hinted that the White House coordinated with Musk, while Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have denied that the administration was involved, the AP reported.sfchronicle.com+2