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For more than a week, Ukrainian forces reported that the satellite service they depend on was not working as it should. Then, on Saturday, two things happened in quick succession: Ukraine said the service was back to normal, and SpaceX chief Elon Musk said his company had restricted it on purpose. The dispute over Starlink and its military version, Starshield, is now out in the open — and the two sides do not agree on even the basic facts of what happened.
What was restricted
According to reports from Reuters, Ukrainian officials said the restrictions capped Starshield operations at speeds of 160 kph (100 mph), hampered the military's ability to intercept Russian attack drones, and forced the cancellation of some operations. The restrictions lasted more than a week and, according to the same reports, disrupted military operations and intensified tensions with the United States. The timing matters: the problems followed US President Donald Trump's announcement of a deal to buy Russian diesel while pressing Kyiv to stop striking Russian oil refineries.
Starlink and Starshield are related but distinct, and the distinction is at the heart of the argument. Starlink is SpaceX's commercial satellite internet service. Starshield is its military version, which Musk has maintained is a separate system controlled by the US government. Ukrainian officials have treated both as part of the same operational picture, because both were affected.
What Musk now says
Musk's account, posted on X on Saturday and reported by CNN, Reuters and Firstpost, is that Ukraine's military violated Starlink's terms of service by using it for offensive drone strikes to kill people. "That loophole was closed last week," he wrote, adding that using Starlink, a civilian commercial service, for offensive drone strikes "has never been allowed, nor should it be", and that "we simply enforced our terms of service when they were bypassed".
That admission marks a shift. According to Firstpost, neither Musk nor the US government had initially taken responsibility for imposing the curbs last week; Musk had previously said that any limits on Starshield's speed or usage were decided by the US military and ultimately by the US president. He also underscored, according to CNN, that the service "remains critical to the defense of Ukraine" and claimed that if Starlink were turned off, "the Ukrainian front line would collapse immediately".
What Kyiv says
Ukraine's response is a flat denial, on technical grounds. Presidential adviser Serhiy Beskrestnov said on Telegram that Ukraine is "physically unable" to use commercial Starlink for medium- and long-range strikes into Russia, because of the speed restrictions and the service's unavailability over Russian territory. Former defence ministry adviser Serhiy Sternenko, also cited by CNN, said that all drone missions requiring satellite communication could only be carried out using Starshield, not the civilian system. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Telegram that Starlink and Starshield had resumed operations at their pre-restriction speeds, and Ukraine's defence ministry said on Saturday that the connection remained stable at over 400 kph.
Kyiv's account was confirmed, in operational terms, by the restoration itself: Ukraine's defence ministry said on Saturday that full access to Starlink and Starshield was restored, according to CNN, after Trump said he had asked Musk to lift the restrictions. The Associated Press, meanwhile, reported that Ukraine disputes Musk's claim that its military violated the service's terms of service — the dispute is now a matter of public record on both sides.
Why this matters beyond one weekend
The episode exposes a structural problem that goes beyond Ukraine. A private company's commercial terms of service now sit between an army and its communications, and the same company both operates the network and decides what counts as a violation. When the operator and the customer disagree about the facts — as they do here, on whether civilian Starlink could even be used for long-range strikes — there is no neutral referee in the public record, only competing statements and a service that was restricted and then restored.
For Ukraine, the immediate question is reliability: whether the restored speeds hold, and whether another restriction could arrive without warning. For other governments watching, the lesson is about dependence on a single commercial provider for battlefield communications. And for SpaceX, the episode has put its own terms of service — a document written for civilian customers — at the centre of a war. None of those questions is settled by Saturday's exchange. What is settled is that the restriction happened, that Musk now says his company imposed it, and that Kyiv says his reason for it is technically impossible.
Related reading: Will AI break the internet's old foundations? and Serbia's student movement wins a historic election. Sources: CNN on Musk's accusation and Firstpost on the restriction.