President Donald Trump says he has asked Elon Musk to lift the restrictions crippling Ukraine's military internet — but Ukrainian officials say the limits are still in place. The standoff over Starshield, the military-grade tier of Musk's Starlink satellite network, has left Kyiv's drone operations hobbled for more than a week, according to Ukrainian officials, the Wall Street Journal, and CNN.
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| File photo: President Donald Trump and Elon Musk at the White House in May 2025. Trump said this week he spoke with Musk about lifting Starshield limits for Ukraine. (White House photo) |
The Phone Call That Started the Row
President Trump called Elon Musk on Wednesday, October 21, and asked him to fully reverse any limits on the crucial internet service that keeps Ukraine's military drones and communications online, according to U.S. officials who spoke to the Wall Street Journal. The outreach followed more than a week of mystery and conflicting reports about what had slowed Ukraine's battlefield connections.
Trump's call was confirmed to the New York Post by a White House official. On Thursday, Trump addressed the call with reporters at the White House, neither fully confirming nor denying that he had personally dialed Musk.
"I don't want to comment on it, whether I called, or whether somebody else called," Trump told reporters on Thursday. "The bottom line, he put it back."
The phrasing left the precise facts murky — a pattern that has defined this episode from the start.
How the Slowdown Began
The crisis began on October 14, when speed restrictions were imposed on Ukraine's use of Starshield — SpaceX's encrypted, military-grade satellite service, a distinct tier above the consumer Starlink network. According to the Wall Street Journal, Musk himself ordered the restrictions, which capped Ukraine's drones at roughly 160 kilometers per hour, or about 100 miles per hour.
Ukrainian officials said the change arrived without warning. "Our defence forces did not receive a warning about this limitation, and this led to the disruption of several missions," Serhiy Beskrestnov, a presidential adviser, said at the time.
Who actually ordered the throttle remains disputed. Reuters cited sources claiming the White House had requested the slowdown. The Telegraph reported that Musk approached Trump with the idea. A prior Wall Street Journal report placed the decision with Musk personally. Musk himself said on October 14 that "any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS."
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, meanwhile, said the administration had "no foreknowledge" of the throttling — and argued separately that the administration could not direct SpaceX or Musk at all because Starlink is a private company.
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| File photo: a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying Starlink satellites lifts off. Starshield is the military-grade tier of the Starlink network, which Ukraine uses under agreements between SpaceX and the U.S. Defense Department. (Spaceflight Now) |
What the Restrictions Did to Ukraine's War Effort
For Ukrainian forces on the ground, the effect was immediate and severe. Drone pilots suddenly lost video connections and control over steering mid-mission, and missions began failing, the Journal reported. For more than a week, the restrictions disrupted any military ordnance moving at high speeds, according to Ukrainian officials cited by CNN.
The damage extended beyond attack drones. The speed caps hampered Ukraine's high-speed interceptor drones — the systems used to shoot down Russia's jet-powered attack drones over Kyiv and other cities. Civilian casualties from those attacks have been mounting, Ukrainian officials said.
Perhaps most consequentially, the restrictions threatened Kyiv's campaign of medium-range drone strikes against Russian army logistics behind the front lines in eastern and southern Ukraine. That campaign has helped hold back Russian offensives this year and limited Moscow to only small advances at the cost of heavy casualties, according to military analysts. If midrange strikes remain impaired by the Starlink restrictions, it could lead to a renewed acceleration of Russia's advance, analysts warned.
Ukraine's access to the military Starshield service, which uses Starlink terminals and stems from agreements between SpaceX and the U.S. Department of Defense, is one of the few remaining forms of American support for Ukraine's defense against Russia's invasion.
Conflicting Claims About What Happened Next
Trump's assertion that the problem was fixed did not survive contact with Kyiv. Ukrainian officials said on Friday morning that the restrictions remained in place despite Trump's comments, CNN reported.
"The speed limits on Starlink and Starshield are still there, and the speed has not been restored," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in remarks on Friday afternoon, Kyiv time. "We hope that the SpaceX and American administration will do it … We count on such decisions."
Testing on the ground told a mixed story. Ukrainian drone units began testing speed limits on Thursday evening, shortly after Trump told reporters that Musk had restored the service. According to POLITICO, some tests recorded speeds of up to 200 kilometers per hour near the Black Sea — an improvement — but drones still rapidly lost signal once flying above 160 km/h.
"We accelerate above 180 km/h, fly for a couple of minutes, the connection drops. It falls to 140–150 km/h and then is re-established — but the situation is better," a drone pilot from Ukraine's top drone unit, known as Magyar's Birds, told POLITICO. "So it works better, but with constant connection interruptions."
Michael Kofman, a war expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said that lifting the throttle "will do much to enable Ukraine's strike capabilities."
Trump, told by CNN on Thursday that the restrictions were still in place, said he would speak to Musk again if the issue wasn't fixed to get Ukraine's access "straightened out." Pressed by CNN's Alayna Treene on who had ordered the slowdown in the first place, Trump said: "I have no idea, but I wouldn't tell you if I did."
File photo: a Ukrainian service member with a military drone. Ukrainian officials said speed caps of about 160 km/h caused drone missions to fail as pilots lost video feeds and steering control. |
What This Means
The episode has exposed how much of Ukraine's war effort now depends on a single private individual — and how opaque the chain of command over that lifeline has become. One week, Ukrainian commanders were told nothing; the next, the American president was personally calling a billionaire to ask for the service to be restored; the day after that, Kyiv said nothing had changed.
It has also sharpened tensions between Washington and Kyiv. Trump has been railing against Zelensky in recent weeks and has denied ordering any slowdown. He has been upset with Ukraine's attacks on Russian oil refineries, which he has blamed for rising diesel fuel prices ahead of the November 3 midterm elections, rather than faulting his own conflict with Iran, according to the New York Post. That friction adds a political dimension to what began as a technical mystery.
For Ukraine, the practical stakes are immediate. Its drone campaign is its most effective lever against a larger Russian military — and the service underpinning it answers, in the end, to Elon Musk.
What Happens Next
Trump has said he will speak with Musk again if the restrictions are not fully lifted — a promise that makes the next 48 hours the test of whether the situation actually changes. Zelensky, for his part, has struck a carefully diplomatic tone, saying Ukraine "counts on" both SpaceX and the American administration to act.
Beyond the immediate fix, the dispute is likely to renew hard questions in Washington about whether a critical military communications channel should rest on a private commercial service at all — and in Kyiv about what backup options exist if it fails again. For now, Ukrainian drone pilots are flying with one hand on the controls and one eye on the signal.
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