Ukraine has again reported restrictions on the operation of Starshield – the military version of SpaceX’s Starlink satellite communications system. President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukrainian units had been recording significant disruptions for several days along the entire front line and in the parts of the country temporarily occupied by Russia.
According to him, this is not a matter of random technical errors, but of systematically limiting the speed. “This means seriously complicating the interception of Russian jet-powered drones,” Zelensky wrote. He added that there had already been strikes that reached their targets because Ukrainian systems had been unable to achieve the necessary speed and respond in time.
According to data cited by Axios, the restriction reaches 161 kilometers per hour. A Ukrainian official said that on the first day the restrictions were around 10%, on the second – 50%, and on the third day all missions had failed because of them. Ukraine’s chargé d’affaires in the United States, Denys Sienik, said that Starshield stops working when drones exceed 100 miles per hour.
SpaceX rejects claims of new restrictions
SpaceX told Axios that the claims were false and that there had been no change in the system’s operation. Neither the company nor the Pentagon provided any further public explanation for the discrepancy between Ukrainian observations and the U.S. position.
Ukraine faced a similar problem in October. At the time, the restrictions cut the connection to terminals mounted on drones and other equipment traveling at more than around 160 kilometers per hour. Kyiv reported on October 24 that access to Starlink and Starshield had been restored at speeds above 400 kilometers per hour.
Disruptions coincided with talks on Ukraine
The new restrictions were reported as U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner arrived in Moscow for a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. After the talks, they were due to travel to Dublin, where they were to meet with Zelensky.
According to The Associated Press, a key topic of the talks in Moscow was the possibility of European representatives joining negotiations to end the war. Putin said that any potential deployment of European troops in Ukraine after a ceasefire would be “absolutely unacceptable” to Russia and would lead to the resumption of hostilities.
The new disruptions came a day after the end of two days of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine in Abu Dhabi, which failed to produce a breakthrough on the main points of contention. Kyiv remains heavily dependent on U.S. satellite communications for battlefield command, logistics, reconnaissance drones and countering Russian air attacks.
Sources: apnews.com, marketscreener.com, axios.com