America just handed Trump a switch to turn off Ukraine's drones
2 hours ago · 21 October 2026Share
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk poses with senior military leaders at North American Aerospace Defense Command headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colorado. File photo. NORAD and USNORTHCOM Public Affairs · Public domain
Elon Musk personally ordered a slowdown of Ukraine's military-grade Starlink connection.
And he talked to Donald Trump about it right around the time it became public.
That's according to a Wall Street Journal report published a few hours ago.
So what actually happened? Six days ago, SpaceX capped the speed of Starlink and Starshield terminals inside Ukraine. No warning to Kyiv. None.
Any terminal moving faster than 100 mph, that's 160 kilometres an hour, lost its connection.
Ukraine's 7th Rapid Response Corps said some terminals dropped out even lower than that. As low as 110 to 120 kilometres an hour.
Here's why that matters. Ukraine's drones steer using that same connection. Cut the link, and the drone is flying blind.
Serhii Beskrestnov is a defence technology adviser to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine's President. He posted about the restriction on Telegram the morning it happened. No warning, he said. Several missions already disrupted.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy called it a serious mistake. He told Piers Morgan it would cost Ukrainian lives.
And here's the detail that matters. Zelenskyy said Ukrainian tests showed the same terminals worked fine at up to 180 kilometres an hour once they left Ukraine, inside EU countries. Then they came back across the border. Same cutoff, same problem.
So what did Elon Musk say at first? He said he had nothing to do with it.
He wrote on X that Starshield is owned and controlled by the US government. He says quote "any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS".
That denial has not held up well.
Reuters reported that two US officials and a Western official said the order came from inside the White House. They would not say who made the call.
Then the Telegraph went further. Four sources told the paper Musk proposed the speed cap to Trump, and Trump agreed to it.
One senior source told the Telegraph that Musk blamed the US administration publicly while knowing he was involved himself.
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A Starlink satellite dish provides internet to residents of Kupiansk, Ukraine after Russian occupation in 2022. File photo. Віталій Носач / РБК-Україна · CC BY 4.0
Now the Wall Street Journal has gone further still. One person who spoke to the paper said Musk discussed the move with several senior Trump administration officials, including Trump himself, before he imposed the cap.
But other Wall Street Journal sources say something different. They say Musk acted on his own, without an explicit instruction from Trump.
Separately, Musk and Trump spoke by phone soon after the restriction became public. Trump was on the campaign trail at the time.
So now there are three different accounts. And they don't agree on the one thing that matters most. Did Trump order this? Did he agree to it after Musk proposed it? Or did he just find out about it afterwards?
None of this happened in a vacuum. Last weekend, the Trump administration warned Ukraine to stop its long-range drone strikes on Russian refineries. The warning was blunt. Stop, or risk losing US intelligence sharing and European arms purchases funded by Washington.
And at the same time, the US eased sanctions pressure on Moscow through a new diesel deal.
Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, rejects all of it. He says no one at the White House told anyone to slow Ukraine's internet down. He called the reports categorically false.
Rubio also said something else. Ukraine currently has no access to Starshield at all. Its request for access to support deep strikes inside Russia is still under discussion.
Donald Trump has given shifting answers. He has said he does not know who ordered the restriction but would like to find out. Separately, he said he did not believe either he or Musk was responsible.
Two US senators have pushed back in public. Thom Tillis asked Musk to confirm the disruption was unintentional. He warned that deliberately weakening Ukraine's defences could be seen as helping a mass killer. He later called for a Pentagon inspector general investigation.
Jeanne Shaheen said the restrictions on Ukraine's access to Starshield had to stop immediately.
Poland's Foreign Minister, Radosław Sikorski, warned Musk directly. Poland pays for a large share of Ukraine's Starlink subscriptions. He wrote on X: "As your European customers, we are watching you."
Some restrictions were partly lifted two to three days after they began. But Volodymyr Zelenskyy said as of last weekend the cap was still in place. Service had not been fully restored.
So here's what's still unresolved. Who actually gave the order. Whether Trump explicitly authorised it or just went along with it. Whether more restrictions are coming. And what this has actually cost Ukraine in drones, and in lives.
Both men deny responsibility. The Telegraph's senior source says neither denial is true.
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