Starshield Still Throttled in Ukraine as Trump, Musk and Cabinet Trade Blame

By Daniel Okafor

Ukraine's Starshield satellite links were still throttled on Friday, one day after President Donald Trump declared the service "running again at full speed" — and no one in Washington or at SpaceX has claimed responsibility for the restrictions.

The limits hit last week without warning. Starshield is SpaceX's military-grade version of Starlink and the backbone of Ukraine's drone operations and military communications. Commanders reported lost drones and disrupted missions within days of the cap taking effect, alarming the country's military and government.

The story has since become a blame game inside the Trump administration. Here is what each player has said, and what the record shows.

What is actually happening on the ground?

The speed cap was still in place Thursday, according to a senior European official familiar with the situation in Ukraine. The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly, said the cap remained set at about 100 mph (160 kph). Ukraine has received no clear official explanation of who ordered the restrictions or why.

Serhii "Flash" Beskrestnov, an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said Friday that nothing had changed.

"We have not seen any indication that Starlink's restrictions have been lifted," Beskrestnov wrote on social media. "There are isolated cases where Starlink can operate at speeds slightly above the limit, but these are likely due to SpaceX's algorithm or specific operating conditions, rather than the restriction being lifted."

The gap between the White House's account and the battlefield reality has already produced a congressional response. Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal announced a new inquiry into how the technologies were slowed down for Ukraine's defense systems.

What did Trump say?

Trump has repeatedly told reporters over the past week that he did not order restrictions on the satellite system Ukraine's military uses, restrictions that caused its drones to lose speed. He has also doubted that the disruption came from Elon Musk, his former close adviser and frequent companion.

"Well, I don't know if it was anybody, but it wasn't me, and I don't think it was Elon," Trump said Friday. "And from what I understand, it's the same as it's always been."

On Thursday, Trump appeared to confirm the service had been down and claimed it was working again at optimal speeds. The Wall Street Journal reported that Musk had agreed to lift the restrictions. When asked whether he had requested the cap's removal, Trump demurred.

"You know, whether I called or whether somebody else called, doesn't make any difference," Trump told reporters. "I guess the bottom line, he put it back."

Where do Vance, Rubio and Hegseth stand?

The cabinet's accounts diverge in ways that matter for who controls the system.

Vice President JD Vance, speaking in Cincinnati on Thursday, was asked whether Musk's role in the slowdown of Starlink and Starshield warranted an investigation. He framed the issue as policy, not corporate conduct.

"I think that fundamentally, Elon Musk runs a private corporation," Vance told reporters. "And I think it's completely understandable that he doesn't want to get in the middle of what is a war between two state actors without the United States government effectively directing him on what to do."

He added: "So I don't think this is about Elon. I think it's fundamentally what is America's policy in Ukraine and Russia going to be."

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking to reporters in India on Wednesday, said for the third time in four days that neither Trump nor anyone in the administration ordered the throttling. He pointed instead at the system's owner.

"What I can tell you with certainty is the president of the United States nor anyone in our system ever requested that any changes to that system be made, and that's what we said repeatedly," Rubio said. "The president has nothing to do with the decisions that are made by Starlink and Starshield and by Mr. Musk. That's a private company. The president doesn't run that company and can't direct that company to do anything."

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth denied any American role on Tuesday while pushing responsibility to Musk's company. "We haven't pulled anything back," Hegseth told reporters, before adding that "there are terms of service that ultimately need to be complied to." He did not say which terms Ukraine needed to meet, but noted that "Starlink has the option to make those decisions."

What does Musk say?

Musk — the world's richest man, one of the GOP's biggest donors and a Trump ally — put the onus squarely on the administration, because Ukraine uses the military-grade Starshield rather than commercial Starlink.

"Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the US government. Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS," he wrote Oct. 14 on X.

"Starlink is a commercial service owned and controlled by SpaceX. Usage of Starlink is limited to civilian or defensive activities and cannot be used for offensive military action, as doing so would be inappropriate for a commercial company," Musk added.

The two claims cannot both be true. Either the Pentagon controls Starshield's speed limits, as Musk asserts, or SpaceX does, as Rubio and Hegseth assert.

How has Zelenskyy responded?

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been working to reverse the restrictions since they took effect. He noted that no similar limits exist in European Union countries and that they apply only to Ukraine.

"In other words, this is a planned operation," he said.

Zelenskyy spoke to a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers on Monday. "We still face speed restrictions on Starlink and Starshield services in different parts of the front, and we still have no explanation for this. Just different strange stories," he said in a video of the briefing posted to social media.

In a Wednesday interview on Fox & Friends, Zelenskyy said connectivity remains limited and that Rubio told him he would work to "unblock" the slowdown.

What is at stake?

The mechanics of the dispute are simple. One company, SpaceX, supplies the network. One government, the United States, is its biggest military customer. Ukraine depends on both to intercept Russian strikes and fly its drones. Until someone in that chain states plainly who set the 100 mph cap and who can remove it, every denial from Washington leaves the same question open — and leaves Ukraine's front-line commanders working around a throttle that officially, according to the president of the United States, no longer exists.