A war of words has erupted between the Trump administration , officials in Kyiv and Elon Musk over who is to blame for limiting Ukraine’s access to Space X’s military-grade version of Starlink.
The restrictions to Starshield have rendered many of the drones used by Kyiv to strike behind the frontlines inoperable and hampered air defence systems that stop Russian attacks, according to Ukrainian officials .
Donald Trump said on Thursday that the service was running again at full speed, but a European official speaking to the Associated Press denied the service was fully functioning.
Amid the diplomatic handwringing, civilian casualties in Ukraine have surged , and the question over who is ultimately responsible for limiting Kyiv’s access has remained unanswered.
The restrictions came as relations between the US and Ukraine hit their lowest point since Russia’s full-scale invasion nearly five years ago.
Donald Trump has accused Ukraine of driving up diesel costs for Americans through its attacks on Russian oil refineries. Analysis by the BBC found that the US-Israel war on Iran and resulting restrictions on oil exports from the Gulf have likely had a greater impact on global diesel supplies.
Trump initially denied any responsibility for the changes to Starshield, telling reporters last Friday: “I don’t know if it was anybody, but it wasn’t me, and I don’t think it was Elon,” referring to Musk, SpaceX’s CEO.
Trump’s cabinet backed him up, with secretary of state Marco Rubio saying on Wednesday: “What I can tell you with certainty is the president of the United States nor anyone in our system ever requested that any changes to that system be made.”
Rubio, however, also made a comment that threw suspicion on to Musk, the world’s richest man.
double quotation mark The president has nothing to do with the decisions that are made by Starlink and Starshield and by Mr Musk. That’s a private company. The president doesn’t run that company and can’t direct that company to do anything.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that the US president had asked Musk to restore the service, with Trump later telling reporters the system was “back”.
He refused to comment on whether he had spoken to Musk, but appeared to suggest the ultimate power to limit the service rested with the SpaceX CEO. “I guess the bottom line, he put it back,” Trump said, referring to Musk.
However, John Cornyn, a Republican who is in his final weeks as the US senator for Texas, told US media that he didn’t believe Musk would have acted “without at least the acquiescence of the White House”.
Musk has supported Trump’s calls for Volodymyr Zelenskyy to be replaced and has been highly critical of the Ukrainian president. However, he was quick to blame the limits on Starshield on the Trump administration, writing on X last week that the systems were “owned and controlled by the US government”.
double quotation mark Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS.
Musk – one of the Republican party’s biggest donors and a Trump ally – continued to deny responsibility for the changes. However, on Tuesday the Wall Street Journal reported that Musk made the order to slow down Starshield, with the paper’s sources in disagreement over whether this was made in concert with Trump.
Vice-president JD Vance backed Musk on Thursday, saying the billionaire “doesn’t want to get in the middle of what is a war between two state actors without the United States government effectively directing him on what to do”.
double quotation mark So I don’t think this is about Elon. I think it’s fundamentally what is America’s policy in Ukraine and Russia going to be.
The Ukrainian president initially blamed the restrictions on “SpaceX and the United States”, saying on Wednesday last week that the move would “bring a lot of human losses … of course, people will die”.
Shortly after the systems failed, Zelenskyy said there were no similar restrictions on Starshield terminals in European Union countries and that they applied only to Ukraine. “In other words, this is a planned operation.”
Zelenskyy said at the weekend that Musk’s SpaceX was ultimately responsible for suddenly limiting the speed at which Starshield worked in Ukraine. “It was a message from [the] American government to limit the speed ... And technically, SpaceX did it.”
Despite Trump’s insistence on Thursday that the service had resumed, a senior European official told the Associated Press that nothing had changed in the operation of Starshield.
Prior to Trump’s comments, Zelenskyy said full Starshield speed had still not been restored for Ukraine, adding that he hoped for talks with Rubio in the coming days.
