Washington/Kyiv: Ukraine allegedly violated Starlink terms of service and used it for offensive drone strikes to kill people, Elon Musk has said.
He said that while defending SpaceX’s decision to throttle Starlink satellite internet service in Ukraine, disrupting operations that the country relies on to defend itself against Russia.
Starlink services have been restored to full speeds thereafter. Musk’s comments on social media came after Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Ukraine’s access to Starlink and Starshield satellite links has been restored to the speeds it had before restrictions that disrupted front-line operations for more than a week.
Since last week, questions have persisted about who ordered the interruptions to the Musk-made satellite internet system that Kyiv has relied on for years to counter Moscow’s attacks, as reported by NDTV.
“The speeds are now where they need to be,” Zelenskyy wrote on X, adding that restoration began overnight and were sufficient by Saturday morning, improving front-line logistics and defense against Russian jet-powered Shahed drones.
Musk spoke out after Ukraine said the services had been restored. In a post on X, he acknowledged that his company SpaceX throttled the Starlink satellite internet service.
“Using Starlink, a civilian commercial service, for offensive drone strikes to kill people has never been allowed, nor should it be,” Musk wrote, adding: “Ukraine military violated Starlink terms of service and used it for offensive drone strikes to kill people. That loophole was closed last week.”
The US government controlled whatever changes happened with Starshield, the military-grade version of Starlink that is the backbone of Ukraine’s drone operations and communication, he maintained. He also defended the role of SpaceX in bolstering Ukraine’s defenses since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The restrictions imposed last week on Starshield alarmed the country’s military and government officials, with commanders reporting lost drones and disrupted missions.
The restoration follows a new US diplomatic push to end the war. Russia agreed Wednesday to resume three-way negotiations with Washington and Kyiv next month. On Friday, Kyiv and Moscow also agreed to a localized ceasefire brokered by US first lady Melania Trump around Oleshky, a war-ravaged, Russian-occupied town in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region.
The episode added to tensions between Kyiv and Washington, a relationship already strained by US president Donald Trump’s reported deal with Moscow on Russian diesel imports, which Ukraine viewed as a betrayal.
