Ukraine reported overnight disruptions to Starlink terminals this week, and Senator Thom Tillis asked Elon Musk to say whether they were intended, while Musk pointed to the US military as the party that sets limits on the service.
Republican Senator Thom Tillis asked Elon Musk on 14 October 2026 to explain disruptions to Starlink terminals in Ukraine, according to The Hill. Tillis wrote on social media: “Please tell me these overnight disruptions to Starlink terminals in Ukraine were unintended.” He warned that intentionally degrading Ukraine’s ability to defend itself might be construed as aiding and abetting a mass murderer, a reference to Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to Mediaite.
The slowdown was first reported by Ukrainian officials. The Kyiv Independent quotes an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky as saying that Ukraine’s Starlink access had been restricted without warning and that this “cannot be a coincidence”. Another Hill report says that Ukraine said service was partially restored after Zelensky warned that people will die from the satellite slowdown. The sources reviewed do not describe the technical nature of the restriction in detail.
Musk replied that the problem lay with the US military. A Hill report says that he blamed the military version of the service, known as Starshield, which he said is owned and operated by the US government alone, and he said that any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately by the president. A Yahoo Finance headline puts the exchange as Ukraine claiming that SpaceX is throttling Starlink again and Musk telling people to ask the president.
Service was later restored. A search summary reports that Ukraine’s former defence minister announced that SpaceX had reinstated speeds of up to 160 kilometres an hour and thanked Musk for his attention to the issue. The sources reviewed do not explain the figure, which is probably the limit on the speed at which terminals can move and still connect, but that is an interpretation and not a statement in the reports.
The episode revives an earlier controversy. A Reuters report cited by Yahoo says that Musk ordered a Starlink shutdown during Ukraine’s 2022 counteroffensive near Kherson, and a Ukrainska Pravda report from earlier says that a shutdown disrupted a Ukrainian attack on the Russian navy. These are older allegations and Delima News has not verified them, but they explain why the latest slowdown drew an immediate response in Washington and Kyiv.
The dispute is happening while the United States and European governments are discussing how to restart peace talks. A Financial Times report says that the US has asked Europe to unfreeze Russian assets for a vehicle overseen by Washington, as Delima News reports separately, and the Starlink episode shows how much Ukraine depends on commercial and military satellite services.
The reports do not settle who made the decision to slow the service. Musk’s explanation puts it on the military and the president, while Ukrainian officials suggested it was not a coincidence, and neither account includes a statement from the Pentagon or the White House in the sources reviewed.
The next information to watch for is a statement from the US Defense Department about Starshield limits, and whether Congress asks SpaceX for a briefing.
Image: A Starlink dish (file photo). Photo: Ka23 13 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)
