Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday that his country’s military faces new “systematic” restrictions on its Starshield satellite internet service, which is operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX and plays a key role in front-line communications.
Starshield is the military-grade version of SpaceX’s Starlink.
Ukraine first reported problems using Starshield last month, following a row between Zelensky and U.S. President Donald Trump over a U.S.-Russia diesel deal.
Zelensky said the latest issues were not “random errors.”
Trump and Musk denied responsibility for the earlier outages. However, Musk later accused Ukraine of misusing SpaceX’s Starlink internet service for military purposes, before all sides said full access had been restored.
“Our units have been recording significant disruptions to Starshield’s operations over the territory of Ukraine for several days now,” Zelensky said on social media.
“Systematic speed restrictions are being imposed,” he said, adding they were “not random errors.”
The restrictions mean Ukraine’s drone interceptors lose signal when travelling faster than 161 kilometres an hour. That makes it effectively impossible for them to intercept Russia’s jet-powered drones, which can travel at up to 1,000 kilometres an hour.
“Because of the speed restrictions, we simply cannot catch up with them in time,” Zelensky told European Union leaders at a summit in Dublin.
“And this means more Russian strikes get through and more of our people are killed,” he added.
The apparent restrictions came as U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, following two days of talks in Abu Dhabi aimed at reaching a deal to end the nearly five-year war.
Zelensky said Ukraine was “trying to get the details from the American side, but so far we know very little” about the new Starshield restrictions.
The EU called on SpaceX to “urgently” restore its services for Ukraine.
“Starshield services must be restored urgently for Ukraine to keep its soldiers connected, to protect its citizens and to defend its territory,” European Commission spokesman Thomas Regnier told a press conference in Brussels.
