Ukraine's Zelenskyy escalates criticism of SpaceX over speed caps

KYIV: Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy escalated his criticism of SpaceX on Saturday (Nov 14), saying speed restrictions on its military-grade Starshield satellite terminals had dangerous political implications and undermined critical air defences.

Zelenskyy said Starshield terminals operating in temporarily Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine had been limited to a maximum speed of 161 kph for the past five days, hampering Ukraine's military capabilities.

The Ukrainian Defence Ministry has raised the issue with SpaceX at the institutional level, Zelenskyy said.

"The restrictions have now been in place for five days. They say it is some kind of technical issue. We do not believe that is the case," Zelenskyy told reporters in remarks released by his office on Saturday. 

"If you impose restrictions there, you are already partially recognising the temporarily occupied territories as not ours. And that is why I believe we have the right to raise this issue and restore the speed – so that there are no restrictions at all."

Zelenskyy said the speed restrictions made it more difficult for Ukrainian air defence units to intercept Russian jet-powered drones and made Ukrainian cities more vulnerable. He said he had ordered his top military and foreign ministry officials to address the issue and seek clarification.

SpaceX has pushed back against the allegations, denying that it introduced new restrictions or made any changes to its satellite operations.

It is the second such outage in recent weeks. In mid-October, Ukrainian officials said that SpaceX limited the speed of Starlink and its Starshield communication systems to about 160 kph amid tensions with US President Donald Trump's administration over Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil refineries. Service was then restored on Oct 24.