White House Ordered Slowdown of Ukraine’s Starshield Service, U.S. Officials Tell Reuters

The order to slow a satellite communications system that Ukraine uses for battlefield communications and drone operations came from inside the White House, according to two U.S. officials and a Western official who spoke to Reuters on the condition of anonymity.

The officials said leaders at the Defense Department received a message that the Starshield service for the Ukrainian military needed to be slowed. They did not say who inside the White House made the decision or who was responsible for carrying it out.

Starshield is the military-grade version of SpaceX’s Starlink service, built for government and national-security customers, and the Pentagon is its biggest customer. Ukrainian officials said this week that military-grade Starlink terminals mounted on fast-moving objects had stopped working, interfering with Ukrainian drones that rely on them for onboard guidance. A person in Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said Thursday that the terminals were working again in motion, but only at speeds up to 100 miles per hour (160 kilometers per hour).

A senior U.S. official told Reuters: “No such request was ever made by the president.” The White House did not respond to questions about whether other administration officials might have made the request.

Musk said Wednesday on X that Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the U.S. government and that any limits on speed or usage are decided by the U.S. military or the president, not by SpaceX. SpaceX did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment. The Defense Department and Ukraine’s embassy in Washington also did not respond.

A fraying relationship with Kyiv

The restriction came as President Donald Trump pressured Kyiv to stop its attacks on Russian oil refineries, which he has blamed for high energy prices ahead of November’s midterm elections. Energy analysts have said the price surge mainly reflects the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, which has disrupted Iranian energy facilities and largely shut the Strait of Hormuz.

Relations between the two governments have deteriorated since an Oct. 9 meeting in Miami that brought together U.S., Ukrainian, European and World Bank representatives. There, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff told Ukrainian officials that Washington was frustrated by Kyiv’s continued strikes on Russian refineries despite repeated U.S. requests to stop, according to a person familiar with the matter. The U.S. delegation also explained a diesel deal with Russia, under which Moscow will supply more than 2.25 million barrels of diesel to U.S. and global markets, as an effort to soften Moscow’s stance in peace talks. Some U.S. lawmakers have said the deal hands Russia money for its war without requiring concessions from President Vladimir Putin.

Since that meeting, Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy have traded criticism. Zelenskyy called the diesel deal “weak,” while Trump called for elections in Ukraine and, according to Reuters, for Zelenskyy’s ouster. Behind the scenes, U.S. officials threatened to stop giving Kyiv intelligence about incoming Russian missile launches, Reuters previously reported, though Trump said Tuesday that Washington was still sharing intelligence.

After the Starshield restriction took effect, Ukraine called senior officials at the White House, State Department and Pentagon on Tuesday and Wednesday to seek answers, a senior Ukrainian official said. Kyiv was told it was a White House decision, the official said.

Reporting based on coverage by Reuters.