Starlink Speed Limits

Welcome back, and thanks for being here.

Last week was about a trade route: the sea lanes a war economy depends on.

This week is about the network a modern army depends on, and what happens when someone else controls it.

Starlink.

Russia's newest Shahed drones are jet-powered. According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, they fly at more than 400 km/h.

To catch them, Ukraine increasingly uses interceptor drones: fast, cheap aircraft flown into the target. Many of them are guided over Starlink, SpaceX's satellite internet network.

On the night of Oct. 13–14, with no warning, that link stopped working above a certain speed.

Units reported terminals dropping out at anywhere between 72 and 161 km/h (45 and 100 mph). Interceptor missions, mid-range strikes, reconnaissance flights, and communications relays were all affected.

"We were unable to develop a means of protecting the population," Zelenskyy said in Brussels two days later.

By the evening of Oct. 14, Ukraine's Defense Ministry said connections had stabilized at speeds up to about 160 km/h. Former Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said removing the limit entirely was "critical for Ukraine's defense." A government source told RFE/RL that forces need at least 450 km/h.

For about a day, Ukraine's drone defenses were capped at a speed well below the threat they were built to stop.

Starlink is SpaceX's commercial satellite internet service. Since 2022, it has become Ukraine's default battlefield network, carrying drone video, artillery coordination, and command traffic.

Kyiv said in 2024 that about 42,000 terminals were in use across the military, hospitals, businesses, and aid groups.

Starshield is the government version. It runs on the same technology but adds extra encryption and is sold to governments, not consumers. In 2024, the Pentagon contracted SpaceX to give 3,000 of Ukraine's terminals Starshield access.

That distinction now matters. Ukrainian officials and Musk describe last week's cap as hitting Starshield terminals. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio says Ukraine doesn't have Starshield access "at this moment."

No one has explained the gap between those two statements.

Even the name of the system that was throttled is disputed.

Musk spoke first. "Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS," he wrote.

On Oct. 15, Reuters reported, citing two U.S. officials and a Western official, that Pentagon officials had been told by someone inside the White House to slow Starshield down. A senior U.S. official denied that President Donald Trump made the request.

On Oct. 16, The Telegraph reported, citing four sources, that Musk proposed the cap and Trump "agreed." "The reality is that they were both in it," one source said.

The same day, Trump said: "I don't know if it was anybody, because it wasn't me. And I don't think it was Elon."

On Oct. 17, Rubio called reports that the White House ordered the cap "categorically false" and said "it wasn't deliberate." Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Washington hadn't pulled Ukraine's access and pointed to the terms of service Kyiv has to follow.

On Oct. 20, The Wall Street Journal reported that Musk ordered the slowdown, and that he and Trump discussed it both before and after. Reuters couldn't verify the report.

Five accounts, from the people closest to the decision, and they can't all be true.

Ukraine has run into SpaceX's controls before.

In September 2022, Ukraine asked for Starlink coverage near Sevastopol to support a drone-boat attack on Russia's fleet. Musk refused, saying it would have made SpaceX complicit in "a major act of war."

In February 2023, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said Starlink was never meant to be weaponized, and that the company had taken steps to stop Ukraine using it to control drones.

In March 2025, Musk wrote that Ukraine's "entire front line would collapse if I turned it off."

This year, the same kind of control worked in Ukraine's favor. In January, Russia began fitting Starlink terminals to Shahed-type strike drones. After Kyiv asked for help, SpaceX imposed a speed limit of about 75 km/h that cut those drones off from their operators. Ukraine then registered its own terminals on a whitelist so they kept working.

The speed limit Ukraine asked for in February was the tool applied to its own forces in October.

Ukraine doesn't pay for most of its Starlink service itself. Poland covers the subscriptions, at about $50 million a year, according to Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski. Germany funds part of the equipment.

"We insist that it works if we are paying for it," German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said on Oct. 16. Berlin, he added, didn't yet have "the full picture."

Europe's main alternative is Eutelsat's OneWeb network. Investors noticed: Eutelsat shares rose 23% on Oct. 14. But OneWeb can't simply step in. Starlink terminals are proprietary, so switching means new terminals, mounts, and power supplies for thousands of units, and there's no stock of combat-ready OneWeb equipment to draw on.

The EU's own plans are further out. Its GovSatcom program, launched in January, plans to add commercial capacity from early 2027. IRIS², a planned constellation of more than 300 satellites, is due to be fully operational in 2029.

Europe pays for part of the service, but the decisions sit with an American company, the American government, or both.

Three things stand out.

First, the uncertainty is the finding. The cap lasted about a day. That Ukraine and its backers still can't get a straight answer about who ordered it matters more. An army that can't find out who throttled its air defense doesn't fully control it.

Second, a control built for one purpose is available for any. The speed limit and whitelist were introduced to stop Russian drones. Nothing about them limits who they can be used against.

Third, this isn't only Ukraine's problem. Any military that relies on a commercial satellite network inherits the operator's decisions, and those of the government it answers to.

There's a lot we don't know yet, including who ordered the cap and whether Ukraine's Starshield access had lapsed. It's also fair to note that SpaceX kept Ukraine connected in 2022 when no one else could, and that February's speed limit was Kyiv's own request.

Starlink has been one of the most important pieces of Western technology in Ukraine's war.

Last week showed that the setting that decides whether it works still sits outside Ukraine, and outside Europe.

That’s it for this week.

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