Ukrainian forces say they are still recording issues with the Starlink network, after US president Donald Trump claimed that limits on the satellite uplink had been reversed by Elon Musk.
The satellite service was still only operating at a cap of 161km/hr, crippling key air defences and limiting mid-range strikes, a Ukrainian official told the Kyiv Independent after Trump’s comments.
“Overall, nothing has changed anywhere,” the paper quoted the unnamed official saying.
Trump spoke to SpaceX chief executive officer Elon Musk and asked him to lift restrictions on his company’s Starlink satellite system, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
Trump expressed frustration to Musk that the system’s speeds were still being restricted at around 100 miles per hour, the report said, citing unnamed US officials.
Asked whether he called Musk, Trump told reporters on Thursday: “I don’t want to say.”
“I don’t want to comment one way or the other,” he said. “But my relationship with Elon is a very good one.”
The Starlink system has become a major flashpoint between the US and Ukraine as relations hit a new low in recent days.
Kyiv depends on Starshield, a militarised version of Starlink, to help its air defences and to help target artillery strikes. The system is seen as crucial to the country’s air defences as Russian President Vladimir Putin has been launching a wave of drone and missile strikes against Ukrainian cities.
Ukrainian troops are still seeing limits on Starlink connection speeds, though the service improved slightly in some areas as of late Thursday, a person familiar with the matter told Bloomberg News, asking not to be identified.
Kyiv is trying to reach US officials about the throttled speeds, as there has still been no formal explanation for the slower connections, the person said.
The US state department and Pentagon referred requests for comment to the White House, which did not immediately respond.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy previously blamed the US for throttling the service. The Journal reported on Tuesday that the slowdown came from an order by Musk, citing unnamed US officials and others.
Zelenskiy met Trump’s envoys earlier this week in Norway and said he had discussed the satellite restrictions with them.
Trump told aides this week that he wanted to reverse the Starlink slowdown, officials said, according to the Journal.
Vice President JD Vance, however, signalled Thursday that Musk would ultimately want to act in concert with the US government.
“Elon Musk runs a private corporation, 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 told reporters, without elaborating.
“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?” he added. – Bloomberg