SpaceX Speed Limits Disrupt Ukraine's Front Line, Kyiv Says
SpaceX's overnight speed restrictions on Starlink have disrupted Ukrainian battlefield operations, Kyiv says, as Russian strikes leave 600,000 without power.
Speed restrictions on the Starlink communications network have disrupted Ukraine's battlefield missions, an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned. Serhiy Beskrestnov said Ukrainian troops had not been informed about the speed limits set overnight at 160km/h by Elon Musk's SpaceX. A source in the Ukrainian defence ministry later confirmed this to the BBC. Starlink is a vital tool allowing Kyiv to guide drones to Russian targets and protect Ukrainian skies. SpaceX has not publicly commented.
At least 600,000 people across Ukraine were left without electricity after deadly overnight Russian missile and drone strikes, Zelensky said. Critical energy infrastructure was hit in Kyiv and the capital region, and in the north-eastern city of Kharkiv, despite US President Donald Trump's claim on Sunday that an energy ceasefire was in place between Russia and Ukraine. Three people were killed in Kyiv, local officials said. Russia said its massive strikes had hit communications and energy facilities used by Ukraine's military. President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and Moscow currently controls about 20 per cent of Ukrainian territory.
In Wednesday's post on Telegram, Beskrestnov said SpaceX had implemented overnight a speed limit on Starlink terminals and this had already resulted in the disruption of a number of missions. He added that the action could not be a coincidence and was related to the current political situation. In a follow-up post, Zelensky's adviser stressed that Starlink was the most effective tool for enabling interceptors to shoot down Russia's newly developed jet-propelled drones. A source in the Ukrainian defence ministry later told the BBC that restrictions had been detected affecting Starlink connectivity at speeds above 160 km/h, and that the root cause was being investigated.
Defence ministry sources later explained that once a vehicle or asset exceeds this threshold speed, the terminal loses its connection. They told the BBC that this made it more difficult to carry out drone operations, specifically interceptors and middle-strike drones, and also degraded capabilities for front line logistics, reconnaissance, and signal relaying. Musk's SpaceX has not commented on the reported speed restrictions.
Zelensky has said the US threatened to restrict intelligence sharing if he did not sign up to Trump's energy ceasefire. Trump on Tuesday denied that Washington was withholding intelligence. Overnight, Russia had launched 39 ballistic and cruise missiles and 128 drones, and four of those missiles and 115 drones had been shot down, according to Ukraine's air force. It is the second night in a row Kyiv has been hit by Russian missiles, and came as Zelensky prepared to meet UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham at Downing Street on Wednesday to discuss accelerating air defence supplies to Kyiv.
During the past two nights, ballistic missiles have struck targets in the Ukrainian capital without any warning, before air raid sirens could be sounded. Ukraine relies on US satellite systems to track Russian missiles in order to issue alerts and to try to shoot them down. Meanwhile, the Russian defence ministry said 902 Ukrainian drones had been shot down overnight over a number of Russian regions, including the capital Moscow and Crimea, Ukraine's southern peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014.
On Sunday, Trump wrote in a post on social media that there was an energy ceasefire in the war between Russia and Ukraine, effective immediately, and that both parties had agreed. Zelensky has since repeatedly said Ukraine is ready to halt its strikes on Russian oil refineries and other energy facilities if Moscow did the same. But Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said Ukraine does not deserve the respite a ceasefire would bring. Under any truce, he added, Europe would be able to pump Ukraine with new weapons, enabling it to continue the war.
The World House, which maintains a dedicated page outlining its support for Ukraine at worldhouse.uk/support, continues to document the consequences of Russia's unprovoked aggression and the vulnerability of the systems on which Kyiv's defence depends.