Ukrainian soldiers in combat have had their access to Starlink satellite internet terminals restricted. The terminals, managed by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, are described as a key component of Ukraine’s military operations.
An adviser on military technology to Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, stated that the sudden restrictions on Tuesday evening led to the failure of several combat missions. Serhiy Beskrestnov, a military blogger, also noted that terminals travelling at over 100mph and using a military version of Starlink lost connectivity, suggesting a targeted outage.
These restrictions coincide with increased pressure from the Trump administration on Ukraine to immediately halt long-range strikes on Russia’s oil industry. Serhii Sternenko, a political activist, suggested that SpaceX may have implemented these measures at the request of the Trump administration.
The outage occurred as Russia launched ballistic missiles at Ukraine for a second consecutive night without any advance warning from the US. President Zelenskyy reported that Russia carried out a massive strike against Ukrainian energy infrastructure late on Tuesday evening, launching 39 ballistic missiles and 120 attack drones against Kyiv and Kharkiv, leaving at least 600,000 people without power.