US President Donald Trump on Thursday claimed that Elon Musk had restored Ukraine’s access to a military-grade version of his Starlink internet service, called Starshield, but Ukrainian officials have said restrictions remain in place that are complicating Kyiv’s war effort.
Trump declined to say whether he’d personally requested the Starshield restoration from Musk, saying, “Whether I called or whether somebody else called doesn’t make any difference.”
“I guess the bottom line is he put it back,” he told reporters at the White House on Thursday.
But those restrictions remain in place despite the comments from the Trump administration, Ukrainian officials said on Friday morning.
For more than a week, the restrictions have disrupted any military ordnance moving at high speeds – hindering interceptor drones in defending against Russian attacks and upending Ukrainian military operations in many areas of the front line, Ukrainian officials have said.
“At this time, we are not observing any lifting of restrictions on Starlink,” said Serhiy Beskrestnov, an advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky . “There are isolated cases where Starlink may operate slightly faster than the restrictions allow, but this is likely due to the SpaceX algorithm or specific usage conditions, rather than a lifting of the restrictions.”
A Ukrainian Defense Ministry source told CNN on Friday morning that “there is currently no confirmation that the restrictions have been lifted” and “instances of signal loss are still being observed” for any military ordnance travelling above 100 miles per hour (161 km per hour).
“There are definitely speed limits; nothing has changed yet, at least from what I can see here,” a Ukrainian Armed Forces officer told CNN. “It makes coordination difficult; sometimes there are interruptions. The connection drops out for 10 to 15 seconds.”
“We lost a lot of assets, much more than usual,” the officer added, saying the restrictions have affected reconnaissance drones and drones with Starlink-equipped systems on board.
A third source familiar with the situation told CNN on Thursday afternoon that speeds are not unlimited, and any restored access is “clearly not enough to intercept jet powered drones” launched by Russia.
Ukraine is waiting for information and clarification from the US side about the situation and there is no response yet, the source said.
Trump and his some of his top officials had denied making the call to throttle Ukraine’s use of the Starshield service, without offering any clear explanation for what had actually happened. Earlier this week, Trump said he was not involved.
Musk also denied taking unilateral action, pointing the fingers toward the Trump administration. “Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS,” he said in a social media post last week.
American newspapers, including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, are reporting that Trump called Musk last week to request he restore Ukraine’s full access to the satellite communications network.
On Thursday, Trump declined to answer questions about a Wall Street Journal report that said he had directly asked Musk to restore service for Ukraine.
“I don’t want to comment one way or the other, but my relationship with Elon is a very good one,” the US President said.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
CNN’s Jennifer Hansler and Victoria Butenko contributed to this report.
