Donald Trump says he has not spoken to Elon Musk about the speed limits still hobbling Starlink in Ukraine. He might, he told reporters on Friday, if the problem turns out not to be fixed. “I have not spoken to him. I might, I might have to, but I have not. I’ve heard it was fixed, but if it’s not, I’ll speak to him,” Trump said.
A day earlier he had sounded more certain. “Bottom line, (Musk) put it back,” he said on Thursday. Kyiv says nothing has been put back.
Who Sets the Limits
Musk has said the Starshield systems are “owned and controlled” by the U.S. government, and that “any limits on speed or usage” are decided by the U.S. military and, ultimately, the president. Anonymous U.S. officials told Reuters the Pentagon got a message from inside the White House saying Starshield speed should be limited for Ukraine’s military. The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump then called Musk on Wednesday to ask him to ease the limits.
Zelensky, writing on X on Friday, was blunt: “The speed limits on Starlink and Starshield are still there. The speed has not been restored.” He added that things had become harder, but that the front line was holding. He also said Ukraine is still waiting for interceptors already agreed on. “This is a real problem, because the Russians attack us almost every single day.”
Republican Senator Thom Tillis said the shifting explanations “sound like Abbott and Costello’s ‘Who’s on First?’” He wrote that Musk says he did not do it, the administration says it did not either, yet someone in the administration reportedly told Musk to undo it. “Except the consequences for Ukrainian civilians are deadly.”
What It Does to Drones
Ukrainian pilots describe the limits in blunt operational terms. A drone commander who goes by Flint, serving on the border between the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions, told NBC News a drone launched at Russian troops lost contact the moment it picked up speed. It fell, the mission was aborted, and he fears the technology inside “may have fallen into enemy hands.” Only afterwards did it become clear that the Starlink speed limit was the cause.
His unit relies on Starshield to fly attack and reconnaissance drones against troops, command posts and tanks. “It’s a knife in the back,” he said of the apparent withdrawal of U.S. support. If the limits stay, many drones will never leave the ground, and the rest will fly slowly. “They could practically be swatted out of the sky with a stick.”
A second pilot, Dovbush, in the Kharkiv region, said Ukraine has no alternative as effective for flying drones. His unit mounts a Starlink Mini on its vehicle and tries to reach positions fast, before the enemy spots them. “But when we drive fast, the connection drops.” Radio is all that is left, and reconnaissance drones have suffered.
The picture is not uniform. At least two soldiers told NBC News that Starlink was not slowed everywhere. A drone technician in Donetsk said his unit had seen no major drops in performance.
By The Numbers
The reason this matters beyond the battlefield is scale. Starlink became SpaceX’s largest business segment by the end of 2025, with $11.4 billion in revenue and $4.4 billion in operating income. In the third quarter of 2026, the Connectivity segment alone reported $5.25 billion in revenue and $2.37 billion in operating income. The network stands at roughly 11,150 satellites, about 75% of all active maneuverable satellites in orbit, with 13.6 million consumer subscribers as of September 30.
Investors will note what that concentration means for Kyiv. Ukrainian forces mostly use the general Starlink network for communications and data transfers, there is no real alternative, and Europe’s own designs are developing slowly. Ukraine said on Thursday it would make greater use of Finland’s satellite capabilities.
Sources
- Starlink
- How Starlink slowdown hit Ukraine’s front line soldiers pushing Russia back
- Trump Says He May Call Musk as Zelensky Says Starlink Limits Remain
Photo: Miles.world (CC BY-SA 4.0)
