KYIV — Ukrainian interceptors still cannot use the internet at high speed to shoot down Russian attack drones or conduct mid-strike operations as of Friday morning, Ukrainian officials and a drone operator said, despite U.S. President Donald Trump said SpaceX founder Elon Musk has lifted speed restrictions on his Starshield service. There is currently no confirmation that the restrictions have been lifted,” a defense ministry official told reporters on Friday.
Ukrainian drone units started testing speed limits from Thursday evening, shortly after Trump told reporters that Musk had restored Starlink. While some tests recorded speeds of up to 200 km/h over the Black Sea and noted an improvement, the drones still rapidly lost signal once flying above the 160 km/h speed limit. It falls to 140–150 km/h and then is re-established — but the situation is better,” a drone pilot from Ukraine’s top drone unit known as Magyar’s Birds told POLITICO.
The speed limit on Starshield, Starlink’s service designed for military purposes, stalled key operations and partially disabled crucial drone interceptors against Russian Shaheds attack drones. Musk said that the U.S. government controlled Starshield, while U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that the administration could not direct SpaceX or Musk regarding restrictions or slowdowns of Starlink services in Ukraine as it is a private company.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy argued the Starlink restriction was a planned operation to specifically restrict Starshield’s operating speed over Ukraine. The Ukrainian government said that it was not told why that had happened for days. However, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Trump had called Musk and asked him to lift restrictions.
That’s a very interesting situation. My relationship with Elon is very good. I don’t want to comment on it, whether I called, or someone else called … The bottom line: he put it back,” Trump told reporters on Thursday evening.
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