Credit: Starlink
Elon Musk, SpaceX’s CEO, said on Saturday, October 24, that Ukraine’s military violated Starlink terms of service by using it for offensive drone strikes, and that SpaceX closed that loophole last week. In a post on X, Musk also warned that if Starlink were turned off, “the Ukrainian front line would collapse immediately,” adding, “This is NOT a threat, it is simply a statement of fact.”
His comments came hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Starlink and Starshield speeds in Ukraine had been restored to where they were before nearly two weeks of restrictions. “The speeds are now where they need to be,” Zelenskyy wrote in his own post on X, adding that the fix matters “for our frontline logistics, for defending Ukraine against jet-powered ‘shaheds.'”
Musk wrote that using Starlink, “a civilian commercial service, for offensive drone strikes to kill people has never been allowed, nor should it be.” He drew a line between Starlink and Starshield, the separate military version of the network, which he said “is controlled by the US government. What they decide to do is up to them.”
Correct.
Using Starlink, a civilian commercial service, for offensive drone strikes to kill people has never been allowed, nor should it be.
Starshield, a different system, is controlled by the US government. What they decide to do is up to them.
Ukraine military violated Starlink terms of service and used it for offensive drone strikes to kill people. That loophole was closed last week.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 24, 2026
In the same post, Musk argued that Ukraine still depends on the service, calling Starlink “the only system that cannot be jammed or blown up, at least for now.” He said Starlink was also crucial to preventing Russia from overrunning Ukraine in the early days of the war, “as all other means of communication were destroyed or jammed by Russia,” and that SpaceX “has done more to defend Ukraine than any private company on Earth BY FAR.”
He closed the post by saying he has “nothing but UTTER CONTEMPT for the virtue-signaling evil warmongers who push for endless slaughter and offer no realistic solution to the conflict.”
Ukrainian officials had spent nearly two weeks saying Starlink and Starshield connections were being cut on fast-moving equipment, which they said hurt drone operations and defenses against Russian Shahed drones. The slowdown drew pressure from allies and lawmakers, with Prime Minister Mark Carney saying the slowdown cost lives and Senator Richard Blumenthal giving Musk two weeks to explain it. Earlier in the week, President Trump said Musk had “put it back”, a claim Kyiv disputed at the time.
What Musk’s post doesn’t explain is what the loophole was, how SpaceX closed it, or how that change fits with Zelenskyy’s statement that speeds are back to pre-restriction levels. SpaceX hasn’t issued its own statement, and Ukraine’s government hasn’t responded to Musk’s claim that its military violated the terms of service.
Should a commercial satellite service get to decide how a country at war uses it?
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