Ukrainian officials have accused Elon Musk’s SpaceX of throttling Starlink satellite services, saying the move disrupted military operations and left Kyiv vulnerable to deadly attacks. A defence technology adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the restrictions came without warning.
Serhii Beskrestnov, a defence technology adviser, wrote on Telegram that terminals travelling at more than 100mph had their service limited overnight on Wednesday. That step, he said, undercut Ukraine’s capacity to launch drones, which rely on satellite internet for piloting.
He said Ukraine was “deprived of one of the few chances to defend itself from Shahed drones.” He also said frontline logistics and missions over long distances were disrupted.
The suggestion that Musk’s company had throttled Starlink services angered Poland, which pays for Ukrainian Starlink subscriptions on Kyiv’s behalf. Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski wrote: “Hey Elon Musk, big man, are you playing politics with your products again?” He added: “As your European customers, we are watching you.”
The “big man” jibe refers to a public dispute on social media between Musk, Sikorski and United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio in 2025, when the SpaceX boss told Sikorski to “be quiet, small man” on his X platform.
The clash broke out when Musk, described as a trillionaire former senior adviser to US President Donald Trump and a key midterm election donor for his Republican Party, said Ukraine’s “entire frontline could collapse” if he switched off Starlink. He later said, “No matter how much I disagree with the Ukraine policy, Starlink will never turn off its terminals … We would never do such a thing or use it as a bargaining chip.”
The slowdown comes after Russian ballistic missiles struck Kyiv for the second night in a row, killing at least nine people and damaging electricity and heating infrastructure. Zelenskyy says Ukraine did not receive its usual warnings from Western allies, without specifying which partners. Trump said the US has not stopped sharing intelligence.
Beskrestnov warned that the slowdown “cannot be a coincidence” after Trump struck a deal with President Vladimir Putin to import Russian diesel despite international sanctions to isolate Moscow. Speaking to AFP, another Ukrainian official accused Washington of throttling Starlink and helping Russia.
On Saturday, Trump suggested Zelenskyy had not done enough to end the war with Russia, blaming him for high diesel prices in the US.
Ukraine’s accusation, Poland’s response and the latest Russian strikes have put Starlink’s wartime role at the center of a widening political dispute.
