Ukrainian officials said Tuesday that Starlink connectivity stopped working for terminals moving above 100 mph, a threshold that crippled drone-based efforts to track and intercept incoming Russian attacks. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told Piers Morgan that the service was cut off overnight, and that the disruption left Ukrainian drones unable to destroy Russian Shahed drones. He said the failure contributed to civilian deaths and criticized the lack of advance warning about incoming ballistic missiles.
Zelenskyy described the restriction as especially damaging given Ukraine's reliance on the U.S. as a strategic partner, and said of SpaceX and Washington, "They knew what they did." The incident highlights the ambiguous status of Ukraine's Starlink use: commercial terminals and military Starshield units are both in operation, but it is unclear which were affected by the speed limit.
Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine's former defense minister, said Wednesday that connectivity at speeds up to 160 km/h was being restored. He called removing Starshield's speed limit entirely "critical for Ukraine's defense." The source does not say whether SpaceX or the U.S. government has confirmed the cause of the restriction or whether the full limit will be lifted.