Elon Musk says SpaceX restricted Ukraine’s Starlink service because, in his view, Ukraine’s military broke Starlink’s terms of service by using the civilian network for offensive drone strikes.
Musk wrote on X on October 24, 2026 that this “loophole was closed last week,” adding that Starlink may support military infrastructure but not “unequivocally offensive strikes.” Kyiv said the slowdown hampered its defensive operations for more than a week, with drone connections cutting out above 161 km/h. Defence Minister Yevhenii Khmara said the connection was stable again on October 24, with drones able to exceed 400 km/h, after President Donald Trump said he had told Musk to “put it back.” Presidential adviser Serhii Beskrestnov called Musk’s post “very strange,” saying Starlink-linked drones in Ukraine are already capped at 70–90 km/h and do not work over Russian territory. Musk denied responsibility for a simultaneous problem with Starshield, the military-grade counterpart run by the U.S. government. The outage coincided with a dispute between Washington and Kyiv over Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries.
Source: BBC News, Musk says SpaceX restricted Ukraine’s Starlink connection as service restored
Image: Starlink satellites, Official SpaceX Photos, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.