Elon Musk’s SpaceX has reportedly imposed new restrictions on its Starlink satellite internet service in Ukraine, disrupting military drone missions, according to Ukrainian officials.
Reuters and The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that the company introduced new limits on how fast Starlink terminals can travel while maintaining a connection. The restrictions primarily affect Starshield, SpaceX’s military-focused version of the service, according to the reports.
“I confirm that SpaceX implemented a speed limit for Starlink terminals operating in motion last night,” Serhii Beskrestnov, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, wrote on Telegram, The Wall Street Journal reported. “Our defense forces received no warning about this restriction, and it has led to the disruption of a number of missions.”
Specifically, Beskrestnova told Reuters that the military-grade service stops working when terminals travel faster than 100 miles per hour.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s 7th Rapid Reaction Corps said that drones were losing connectivity for 10 to 20 seconds at speeds as low as 68 to 75 mph.
“The drones kept moving, but these interruptions made them harder to control,” the Corps told Reuters in a statement.
Notably, the move comes as President Donald Trump has pressured Ukraine to stop attacking Russian oil refineries as part of his push for an energy cease-fire with Russia.
However, Reuters notes that Starlink does not operate inside Russia, meaning those attacks would not be directly affected by the restrictions.
The timing also comes amid broader tensions between the United States and Ukraine. On Tuesday, Trump said the U.S. was continuing to share intelligence with Ukraine, despite Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claiming that his country had not received advance warnings from allies before a recent Russian missile attack on Kyiv.
The new restrictions also arrive as Ukraine has recently been targeting Russian data centers with drones. Zelenskyy claimed Monday that attacks on several Russian data centers had reduced the presence of Russian bots on social media. Some users on X even claimed that engagement on Musk’s posts had dropped following the attacks.
However, The Verge reported that the disruptions appear to have affected more anodyne web crawlers used for search by Russian technology company Yandex, rather than bots involved in disinformation campaigns.
Still, the Starlink restrictions are renewing questions about the influence Musk has over Ukraine’s war effort.
“Hey, @elonmusk, big man, are you playing politics with your products again?” Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski wrote in a post on X on Wednesday. “As your European customers, we are watching you.”
Sikorski previously clashed with Musk on social media in March 2025 after the billionaire suggested that Ukraine’s “entire front line would collapse” if he turned Starlink off.
“Starlinks for Ukraine are paid for by the Polish Digitization Ministry at the cost of about $50 million per year,” Sikorski wrote in response at the time. “The ethics of threatening the victim of aggression apart, if SpaceX proves to be an unreliable provider, we will be forced to look for other suppliers.”
Musk later insisted that SpaceX would not use Starlink as leverage against Ukraine.
“To be extremely clear, no matter how much I disagree with the Ukraine policy, Starlink will never turn off its terminals,” Musk wrote in an X post.
SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
