Ukraine accuses Elon Musk’s SpaceX of throttling Starlink terminals

SaveSharefacebookxwhatsapp-strokecopylinkRescuers work at the site of a house damaged by a Russian drone strike in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, October 14 [Reuters]By Al Jazeera Staff, AFP and ReutersPublished On 14 Oct 202614 Oct 2026Ukrainian officials have accused SpaceX of throttling Starlink satellite services, disrupting its ability to carry out military operations and leaving Kyiv vulnerable to deadly attacks.An adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that without warning, services had been limited for terminals travelling over 100mph overnight on Wednesday – effectively limiting Ukraine’s ability to launch drones, which use satellite internet to pilot the craft.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemslist 1 of 4Will Ukraine survive the winter?list 2 of 4Russia and Ukraine trade strikes amid doubt over ‘energy ceasefire’list 3 of 4‘Block, blunt, break’: What’s in NATO’s new Russia war plan?list 4 of 4‘Massive’ Russian attack on Ukraine kills at least 9, damages power sitesend of listWriting on Telegram, defence technology adviser Serhii Beskrestnov said Ukraine was “deprived of one of the few chances to defend itself from Shahed drones”.He added that frontline logistics and long-distance missions were also disrupted. The suggestion that Elon Musk’s company had throttled Starlink services drew the ire of Poland, which pays for Ukrainian Starlink subscriptions on Kyiv’s behalf.“Hey Elon Musk, big man, are you playing politics with your products again?” wrote Radoslaw Sikorski, Poland’s foreign minister. “As your European customers, we are watching you.”The “big man” jibe refers to a public dispute on social media between Musk, Sikorski and United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio in 2025, when the SpaceX boss told Sikorski to “be quiet, small man” on his X platform.The clash broke out when Musk, the trillionaire former senior adviser to US President Donald Trump and key midterm election donor for his Republican Party, said that Ukraine’s “entire frontline could collapse” if he switched off Starlink.He later said, “No matter how much I disagree with the Ukraine policy, Starlink will never turn off its terminals … We would never do such a thing or use it as a bargaining chip.”‘Cannot be a coincidence’The slowdown comes after Russian ballistic missiles struck Kyiv for the second night in a row, killing at least nine people and damaging electricity and heating infrastructure.Zelenskyy says Ukraine did not receive its usual warnings from Western allies, without specifying which partners.Trump said the US has not stopped sharing intelligence. Beskrestnov warned that the slowdown “cannot be a coincidence” after Trump struck a deal with President Vladimir Putin to import Russian diesel – despite international sanctions to isolate Moscow.Speaking to AFP, another Ukrainian official accused Washington of throttling Starlink and helping Russia.On Saturday, Trump suggested Zelenskyy had not done enough to end the war with Russia, blaming him for high diesel prices in the US.