Elon Musk said on Oct. 24 that SpaceX, not the U.S. government, throttled Ukraine’s Starlink terminals ten days ago, because Ukraine was using the civilian service to fly attack drones. “Ukraine military violated Starlink terms of service and used it for offensive drone strikes to kill people. That loophole was closed last week,” he wrote on X. “Starshield, a different system, is controlled by the US government. What they decide to do is up to them.” Starlink “remains critical to the defense of Ukraine,” he added; “were Starlink to be turned off, the Ukrainian front line would collapse immediately.” He closed with “UTTER CONTEMPT for the virtue-signaling evil warmongers who push for endless slaughter and offer no realistic solution to the conflict. May you burn in hell.”

The post came hours after Defense Minister Yevhen Khmara announced the restrictions had been lifted: “We are recording speeds exceeding 400 km/h, and the connection is stable.” Since Oct. 14, terminals moving faster than 161 km/h had lost service, grounding long-range drones. Ukrainian officials had blamed the Pentagon, which runs Starshield; nine senators demanded a Defense Department inspector general report by Nov. 1; Secretary of State Rubio said Ukraine does not have Starshield access and denied White House involvement.

Ukrainian specialists rejected Musk’s version. Serhii Sternenko, a former Defense Ministry adviser, said any terminal operating in motion has had to be whitelisted and connected to Starshield since February, making drone use of commercial Starlink “technically impossible.” Presidential adviser Serhii Beskrestnov claimed commercial terminals in Ukraine had already been speed-capped at 70-90 km/h since early 2026 and are geofenced out of Russia. (Has Ukraine been spoofing the GPS location of moving Starlink receivers to get around that geofencing, which would otherwise prevent their use in Russian territory?)