Ukraine Loses Starlink Access as Musk Says Zelenskiy Went “Too Far”
SpaceX suddenly throttled access to Starlink with no warning, Ukraine says.
Is Elon Musk using SpaceX to kneecap Starlink access in Ukraine on behalf of President Donald Trump?
A Ukrainian military official claimed Wednesday that Musk’s SpaceX had interrupted functioning of the country’s military-grade Starlink terminals, Reuters reported. Presidential adviser Serhiy Beskrestnov wrote on Telegram that Ukrainian defense forces “did not receive warning about this limitation, and this led to the disruption of several missions.”
The disruption comes just days after Trump publicly criticized Ukraine for continuing to attack Russian oil refineries in the wake of the U.S. lifting sanctions on the sale of Russian oil, and called for the removal of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Musk weighed in on Trump’s comments on social media Saturday, writing: “Zelensky has gone too far.”
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, whose country pays for Ukraine’s Starlink access, responded to reports of the disruption.
“Hey, @elonmusk, big man, are you playing politics with your products again? As your European customers, we are watching you,” he wrote on X. Musk did not respond.
If the disruption really is some kind of political intervention, this is only further proof that Europeans—or really, anyone in the world—cannot rely on any of Musk’s products, as they will be at the whims of the billionaire technocrat that still finds himself at Trump’s beck and call.
In a last-ditch attempt to alleviate financial strain ahead of the midterm elections, the Trump administration announced last week that the U.S. would temporarily waive sanctions on Russian diesel sold to the global market through April 2027. Trump claimed that Russia would “immediately” supply more than roughly 2.2 million barrels of diesel fuel to the American and global marketplace. (A small drop in the bucket, all things considered.)
The Trump administration is threatening to cut off intelligence sharing and weapons sales to Europe for Ukraine should Kyiv not halt its deep strikes on Russian energy infrastructure, multiple outlets reported Monday.
The State Department and the Pentagon made the warnings to officials in Ukraine and Europe over the weekend, with the U.S. military directly communicating the threat to Ukrainian commanders, CNN reported.
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Hill.
The Financial Times was the first to report on the U.S. warning, which included threats to cut off the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List mechanism for buying American weapons for Ukraine. The initiative is managed by NATO and is used to procure U.S.-produced weapons to be sent to Kyiv.
“They are calling Kyiv … they are calling everyone [in Europe],” an official who received a call from a U.S. defense official told the outlet.
The warnings from Washington follow President Trump’s announcement late last week that the U.S. would purchase 300,000 tons of Russian diesel in an effort to lower fuel prices that have spiked as a result of the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran.
Trump, however, insists Ukraine’s strikes on Russian oil refineries have caused U.S. diesel prices to surge ahead of November’s midterm elections.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has lambasted the diesel deal as providing the necessary funding to sustain Russia’s war in Ukraine.
On Sunday, Trump surprised Ukraine by announcing that it and Russia had agreed to what he described as an “energy ceasefire.”
Zelensky said at the Warsaw Security Forum in Poland that Ukraine had learned of the deal through news reports.
He wrote on the social platform X that Ukraine supported the proposal but made it clear that Kyiv would not agree to stop its retaliatory strikes without a corresponding halt to Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy system.
On Monday, Zelensky said Russia has continued to strike Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, including a power plant in Kharkiv.
Last night, while Russian ballistic missiles were landing on Kyiv for the second night in a row with zero American early warning, somebody at SpaceX reached over and turned a dial. Ukrainian drone crews watched their birds climb, stutter, and drop out of contact mid-mission. No notice. No explanation. No comment from the company. Ukraine’s defence forces woke up Wednesday to discover the backbone of their battlefield communications had been quietly throttled by the world’s richest man, four days after he posted that Zelensky “has gone too far,” and six days after Ukraine started burning down the Russian server farms that power the bot, crypto and disinformation economy his entire world runs on.
Retired, living in the Scottish Borders after living most of my life in cities in England. I can now indulge my interest in all aspects of living close to nature in a wild landscape. I live on what was once the Iapetus Ocean which took millions of years to travel from the Southern Hemisphere to here in the Northern Hemisphere. That set me thinking and questioning and seeking answers.
In 1998 I co-wrote Millennium Countdown (US)/ A Business Guide to the Year 2000 (UK) see https://www.abebooks.co.uk/products/isbn/9780749427917
