Starshield satellite terminals deployed across temporarily Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine have faced a strict speed cap of 161 kph for five days, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday.
The restrictions on the military-grade SpaceX hardware have directly hampered Ukraine’s military capabilities. Zelensky said that the sudden limitations complicated efforts by Ukrainian air defense units to intercept Russian jet-powered drones, leaving cities increasingly vulnerable to attacks.
The Ukrainian Defense Ministry has raised the issue with SpaceX at the institutional level, according to Zelensky in remarks released by his office. Top military and Foreign Ministry officials have received orders to address the matter directly and demand formal clarification.
“The restrictions have now been in place for five days. They say it is some kind of technical issue. We do not believe that is the case,” Zelensky said.
“If you impose restrictions there, you are already partially recognising the temporarily occupied territories as not ours. And that is why I believe we have the right to raise this issue and restore the speed — so that there are no restrictions at all,” Zelensky said.
SpaceX pushed back against the allegations, denying that it introduced new restrictions or made any changes to its satellite operations.
This disruption marks the second such outage in recent weeks. In mid-October, Ukrainian officials reported that SpaceX limited the speed of Starlink and Starshield communication systems to about 160 kph amid tensions with U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration over Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil refineries. Service was subsequently restored on Oct. 24.
Omar El Sayed – World Editor
