Key facts
- The Ukrainian president said Starlink and Starshield satellite links were back at the speeds they had before limits disrupted front-line operations for over seven days.
- Musk said the US government controlled any changes to Starshield, which he described as SpaceX's military-grade Starlink variant supporting Ukraine's drone operations and communication.
- Ukraine's Ministry of Defence said in March 2025 that it had set up a Space Policy Directorate meant to consolidate capabilities and move the military space sector forward.
- On 15 August, two Flamingo missiles struck the Progress Rocket and Space Centre in Samara, Russia, damaging a pair of buildings including facility 106A, a facility where Soyuz launch-system motherboards were assembled.
Elon Musk said on Saturday that SpaceX had throttled the Starlink satellite internet service in Ukraine, disrupting operations the country relies on to defend itself against Russia. .
Ukrainian officials said on Oct. 14, 2026, that SpaceX had begun imposing speed restrictions with no advance notice on Starshield service (SpaceX’s military-grade Starlink variant), disrupting the ability of forces to communicate with drones. The restrictions made units moving faster than 100 miles (160 kilometers) per hour lose connectivity, which hindered Ukrainian interceptor-drone missions against Russia’s jet-powered Shahed drones capable of nearly four times that speed. Ukrainian officials reported on Oct. 24, 2026, that Starshield service had returned to normal operation.
Musk acknowledged in an X post that SpaceX throttled Starlink because Ukraine’s military used the civilian service for offensive drone strikes, which he said was never permitted and violated the terms of service. He said the loophole was closed last week and that the US government controls any changes to Starshield, SpaceX’s military-grade variant supporting Ukraine’s drone operations and communication. Limits imposed last week on Starshield worried Ukraine’s military and government officials, with commanders reporting lost drones and disrupted missions. .
Ukrainian President Zelenskyy posted on X that speeds were now where they needed to be, saying restoration started overnight and was enough by Saturday morning to improve battlefield logistics and defence against Russian jet-powered Shahed drones. He said Starlink and Starshield satellite links were back at the speeds they had before limits disrupted front-line operations for over seven days. .
The person or organization responsible for the temporary Starshield speed restriction remains in dispute. Some reports suggest White House direction, while President Donald Trump denied involvement and said Musk should not be blamed. Vice President JD Vance suggested White House coordination with Musk, while Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth denied administration involvement. Rubio attributed the decision to SpaceX, and Musk said SpaceX restricted commercial Starlink because Ukraine’s offensive drone operations broke the terms of service while maintaining the US government controls Starshield access. .
The restoration came as Russia agreed on Wednesday to resume three-way negotiations with Washington and Kyiv next month. Kyiv and Moscow also accepted a local ceasefire arranged by first lady Melania Trump for Oleshky, a war-ravaged Russian-occupied town in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, on Friday. The Starlink dispute increased tensions between Kyiv and Washington, ties already strained by President Donald Trump’s reported deal with Moscow on Russian diesel imports that Ukraine saw as a betrayal. Ukraine’s Defense Minister Yevhenii Khmara credited direct dialogue and Zelenskyy’s diplomacy with Washington, saying the outcome mattered most for the front, the military, drone work, logistics and communications. .
Starlink has been vital since February 2022 for connecting Ukrainian civilians and giving tactical communications to Ukrainian forces, using small, lightweight terminals with low-latency, high-bandwidth connectivity that is harder to jam. In March 2025, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence established a Space Policy Directorate meant to consolidate capabilities and move the military space sector forward. Musk declined Ukraine’s 2022 request to expand Starlink coverage near Russian-occupied Crimea for an attack on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, and in September 2022 Musk reportedly ordered a shutdown of existing service around Kherson during a Ukrainian counteroffensive. CSIS says alternatives such as Eutelsat’s OneWeb and the EU’s GOVSATCOM system are not one-for-one replacements and lack Starlink’s performance characteristics. .
Ukrainian officials cited by Reuters said a major global Starlink outage on July 25, 2025 disrupted Ukrainian military communications for more than two hours, an incident reportedly linked to an internal software failure. Kyiv is working to broaden its access to space-based systems beyond the United States and Starlink and is creating new space countermeasures against threats such as Oreshnik. Ukraine signed a letter of intent with ICEYE and Nokia to explore setting up sovereign satellite communications, and Poland has said it wants to build its own Starlink-like system. .
Europe is seeking more autonomous access to space-based reconnaissance, with Rheinmetall and ICEYE planning synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite production in Germany starting in Q2 2026. Viasat’s incident overview describes a deliberate cyberattack on February 24, 2022, that led to a partial interruption of KA-SAT service and affected customers across Ukraine and other parts of Europe. In February 2026, SpaceX used an allow-list approach to identify terminals permitted for use in Ukraine so that only authorized accounts could run Starlink service.
Ukraine’s strikes on Russian space industry infrastructure continued in 2026. On Aug. 15, two Flamingo missiles struck the Progress Rocket and Space Centre in Samara, Russia, damaging a pair of buildings including facility 106A, where Soyuz launch-system motherboards were assembled. The centre builds rockets that deliver Russia’s Rassvet satellite system, which Moscow is rapidly deploying to replace Starlink. Ukrainian strikes also hit Roscosmos locations in Korolyov, north of Moscow, and a radio telescope in Crimea that Russia had captured. .
The country has conducted at least three tests of near-space interceptions as it seeks to launch its own sovereign satellites. Last month, Ukraine together with Denmark’s GomSpace announced a successful launch of Obria Nano, an opening test satellite for a future Ukrainian communications network reportedly planning about 245 satellites.
Space has become a contested operational enabler providing intelligence, communications, navigation and timing that modern forces require to fight, manoeuvre and survive, while treaties on space governance and weapons deployment have been overtaken by the rapid increase in countries operating in space and the expansion of commercial activities by companies such as SpaceX and Blue Origin. Dr Elena Grossfeld of the Swedish Defence University said space warfare is already here rather than a future prospect. “But we’re already in that future.” .
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