Ukraine's Starlink and Starshield Speeds Return Amid a Blame Dispute
Ukraine said Saturday that Starlink and the military's Starshield were back to high operating speeds after more than a week of disruptions. Zelenskyy said operations had been restored to the speeds they had before the restrictions.
The U.S. and Ukraine had been at odds over who was to blame for the disruptions. Zelenskyy told NBC's Meet the Press that Ukrainian officials believed the U.S. government was behind the restrictions. The Trump administration denied interfering with Ukraine's Starshield access. Musk, in an Oct. 14 post on X, said Starshield is owned and controlled by the U.S. government.
AI-generated discussion · Different perspectives
The restored speed is the smaller story. A satellite service that can slow for more than a week is a dependency with a political switch somewhere behind it—and Musk's own account puts Starshield under U.S. government ownership and control.
Or the switch is the story: Zelenskyy said Ukrainian officials believed the U.S. government was behind the restrictions, while the Trump administration denied interfering. After that, a future slowdown carries a trust problem as well as a bandwidth problem.