Somewhere in orbit, a rule seems to have changed overnight. Since Tuesday night, Ukrainian officials say, Starlink terminals moving faster than about 160km/h (100mph) simply lose their link. On paper that is a speed setting. On the battlefield it means drones going blind mid-flight.
Ukraine leans heavily on the satellite network because it shrugs off Russian jamming. Interceptor drones, the craft now used to chase Moscow’s faster jet-powered Shaheds, depend on it, as do long-range attack drones and the heavy hexacopters that ferry supplies to the trenches. Serhiy Beskrestnov, who advises President Volodymyr Zelensky on military technology, said troops had no warning and several missions failed. He argued the timing “cannot be a coincidence”. One corps told Reuters that links dropped for 10 to 20 seconds even at 110–120km/h. Static terminals on the ground appear unaffected.
Elon Musk pushed back, saying Ukraine’s military uses Starshield, a separate network run by the US government, and that the company does not run it. That answer shifts attention to Washington, where Donald Trump has demanded that Kyiv stop hitting Russian refineries, blamed it for high diesel prices and agreed a diesel deal with Moscow. The White House has not explained the restriction.
Warsaw, which covers the bill for Kyiv’s terminals, reacted sharply. Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski asked Musk whether he was “playing politics” with his products again, adding that European customers were watching.
The timing is painful for Kyiv. Russian ballistic missiles struck the capital for a second straight night, at times without the usual advance warning from foreign partners, and Zelensky flew to London on Wednesday to press Prime Minister Andy Burnham for more air defence.
