Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia launched thousands of attacks last week before Elon Musk’s SpaceX restored its Starlink and Starshield satellite internet service to the country.
Zelensky said in an article on Sunday that Moscow had launched about 1,600 guided aerial bombs, 48 missiles, including ballistic missiles, and nearly 2,300 attack drones over the past week. “Unfortunately, almost every day, these brutal strikes cause deaths and injuries,” he lamented.
That came a day after Zelensky said Ukraine’s access to Starlink and Starshield satellite links, which the country uses for military communications, drone operations and frontline logistics, had been restored to the speeds it had before the imposition of restrictions that disrupted frontline operations for more than a week.
“Speeds are now where they need to be,” Zelensky wrote on
Musk said kyiv violated SpaceX’s commercial terms of service by using Starlink for offensive drone strikes – an allegation that Ukrainian officials have denied. However, Musk noted that the U.S. government controls any operational changes to Starshield, the military version of the service that serves as the backbone of Ukraine’s defense communications and drone network.
President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have denied any administration involvement in the service disruptions.
News week contacted SpaceX and the White House, via email outside of normal business hours, for comment.
Last week’s Russian attacks, according to Zelensky
Zelensky said four people were killed and 22 others injured, including an 11-year-old girl, in attacks in the Dnipropetrovsk region on Saturday evening.
Six people were injured after a drone strike on a building in Vinnytsia and rescue workers were injured during a new strike in Kharkiv, where “the Russians first hit a home improvement hypermarket, then carried out a cynical double strike against the emergency services who arrived on the scene”, the Ukrainian president added.
Russia did not directly respond to the reports, but the Russian Defense Ministry said on Sunday that the attack hit a logistics center in Kharkiv that was used for the storage and distribution of goods for the Ukrainian military, Reuters reported. News week contacted the Russian Defense Ministry by email on Sunday for comment.
The attacks described by Zelensky took place during a week where restrictions on Starlink and Starshield services hampered Ukraine’s ability to intercept some Russian drones, according to Ukraine’s Defense Ministry.
White House denies ordering slowdowns, Musk defends SpaceX’s role in Ukraine
Ukrainian officials said access to Starlink and Starshield was restricted in the country without prior warning and that SpaceX imposed a speed limit on Starlink terminals earlier this month, disrupting operations on the battlefield.
Ukraine has targeted Russian oil and gas facilities in an effort to reduce energy revenues used to finance Moscow’s war. Russian President Vladimir Putin said attacks on Ukrainian refineries cost Russia about 1% of its gross domestic product.
Meanwhile, Moscow continues to target Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
Trump has been pressuring Ukraine to stop hitting Russian oil facilities as high diesel prices remain a problem in the United States as the midterm elections approach. Trump blamed Ukrainian attacks for contributing to those prices, while his administration took steps to allow Russian diesel back into global markets and eased sanctions to allow imports to the United States.
Meanwhile, Musk distanced himself from the situation and said the US government had the final say before declaring that Ukraine had violated the terms of service.
“Using Starlink, a civilian commercial service, for offensive drone strikes aimed at killing people has never been authorized, nor should it be,” Musk wrote on X on Saturday. “The Ukrainian military violated Starlink’s terms of service and used it for offensive drone strikes aimed at killing people. This loophole was closed last week.”
Ukrainian officials have rejected Musk’s claims, with Serhii Beskrestnov, Zelenskyy’s defense technology adviser, saying long-standing restrictions on the civilian system in Ukraine made such offensive use impossible.
“It is very strange that Elon Musk is unaware of the restrictions imposed on Starlink’s operations in Ukraine,” he wrote in a post on Telegram.
Beskrestnov said drones operated through the civilian Starlink system were subject to a speed limit of 43 to 56 miles per hour in Ukraine and did not operate in Russia. “Therefore, we physically cannot use commercial Starlink for deep strikes or mid-range strikes,” he said.
Meanwhile, Reuters reported last week, citing two U.S. officials and a Western official briefed on the matter, that the order to slow the service came from inside the White House. Officials did not identify who made the decision.
However, a senior U.S. official told Reuters that “no such request has ever been made by the president.” Rubio also disputed suggestions that the U.S. government was responsible for decisions involving the slowdown. Rubio said the United States and Trump had “nothing to do” with Starlink’s decisions.
Zelensky thanked Americans after connectivity was restored, saying in a video posted Saturday on
News week Reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story. Learn more about Martyn here. Contact News week editors on this story: Anthony Murray and Matthew Robinson.
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