No directive from Trump placed any restrictions on Ukraine's ability to draw on SpaceX's Starshield satellite network, a senior US official stated. When a reporter asked whether the president had directed any limits on Ukraine's access to Starshield, the official's Thursday response was that no such directive had come from the president at any point.
That statement left open the possibility that a separate person or body within the government had a hand in restricting Kyiv's access, while at the same time pushing back against Zelenskyy's assertion that Trump bore responsibility for the decision.
Speaking to reporters during the week, Zelenskyy described Trump and Musk as having acted in concert to impose restrictions on Starlink connectivity — a curtailment that, in his account, reduced the capacity of Ukrainian drone-interception units to neutralise Russian unmanned aircraft and, by extension, exposed civilians to greater harm.
Questions over who holds authority over SpaceX's satellite network at the front lines — a system Ukrainian forces rely on for battlefield communications, drone piloting, and artillery targeting — drew widespread attention following a period of access loss that has since been resolved. Legislators and administrations across several nations sought answers from both SpaceX and US officials about the authorisation behind a decision to scale back the service's capacity, a step that had drawn formal objections from a range of international representatives.
On Wednesday, Musk wrote on X that speed and usage restrictions for Starshield — a military-adapted variant of Starlink that has taken on a notable role in Ukraine's ongoing conflict with Russia — fall under the authority of the US military and, ultimately, the president. Those statements from Musk drew renewed scrutiny after Zelenskyy and a number of European officials put forward the assertion that he bore responsibility for the Starshield disruptions.
In posts on X, Musk described Starshield solely as hardware owned by the US government, a characterisation that critics say left his company's role in the arrangement largely unaddressed.
Separate from the government-owned-and-operated Starshield network, SpaceX markets its own Starshield offering as a military-grade communications solution built on top of the company's broader Starlink satellite infrastructure. Starlink terminal connections were curtailed by SpaceX, according to an individual with knowledge of the matter who relayed the information to a prominent broadcast outlet. Anonymity was granted at the source's request, given the sensitive nature of the matters under discussion.
Streeting, who had met with Hegseth at the Pentagon that Thursday, told a broadcast outlet that the cause of the service disruption had not yet been established from the UK's vantage point, while Hegseth and Pentagon representatives had put out no statement on the matter.
Zelenskyy's public accusation directed at Washington deepened an already deteriorating diplomatic relationship, one that had been under strain since Trump and Putin concluded a diesel export deal the week prior. The agreement drew criticism from some quarters as a financial arrangement that benefits Moscow without meaningfully lowering energy costs for American consumers. Trump told a television interviewer late Thursday that he held an unfavourable view of the Ukrainian leader, pointing to Zelenskyy's decision to resume attacks on Russian energy infrastructure and calling on Ukraine to conduct elections that Zelenskyy has described as unworkable under active wartime conditions. Trump directed the bulk of his public commentary toward Zelenskyy over recent weeks.
On Wednesday, Musk posted on his X platform that Zelenskyy should step down from the presidency. Separately, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said in 2023 that the company had put limits on Starlink's use by Ukrainian drones, on the grounds that the technology had been developed for communications rather than weapons purposes. That position traced back to an earlier decision in which Musk chose not to extend Starlink coverage to waters near Crimea, a Ukrainian territory then held by Russian forces, and to a related episode in which the service was reportedly switched off at his direction. Musk later wrote on X that honouring the activation request would have drawn SpaceX into direct involvement in what he described as a large-scale act of war and a broadening of the conflict.
