Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Saturday that his military’s access to a network of Elon Musk’s satellites, which it relies on for targeting and defense, had been restored.
Zelenskyy’s comment, made in an X post, came after a chaotic 10 days that began when an advisor to the Ukrainian president said that drones and other projectiles were losing access to the Starshield network.
Starshield is the military application of Musk’s Starlink satellite network. In the no-man’s-land of war-torn eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian military relies on Starshield satellites to give it control of fast-flying, exploding drones and interceptors.
“I thank all Americans and all our partners who took this seriously and truly helped — members of Congress, senators, all the media, the State Department, and the President,” Zelenskyy said in a video he posted to X on Saturday.
Though Musk, as the CEO of SpaceX, to some degree owns the network of satellites, he said in an X post that “any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS.”
The Wall Street Journal reported that Musk himself had ordered the slowdown. Earlier this month, after Ukraine targeted Russian oil facilities, both Musk and President Donald Trump made statements disparaging Zelenskyy. Trump has tried to ease high gas prices — which spiked after the US attacked Iran in February — by loosening sanctions on Russian energy.
“Zelensky has gone too far,” Musk said in an X post on October 10.
For his part, Trump told reporters that he didn’t know who ordered the slowdown. “I don’t know who it was, but I’d like to find out,” he said on October 19.
As Russia attempts to bombard Kyiv into submission ahead of what is widely expected to be one of the most brutal winters of the nearly seven-year-long war, a Starlink connection allows Ukraine to intercept some of Russia’s slower-paced drones.
The throttling of Starlink prompted a rare outburst from Ukraine’s leader, who has sought to control his demeanor after a disastrous Oval Office meeting last year, when Trump berated Zelenskyy for not adequately appreciating US support.
In an interview with Piers Morgan on his YouTube channel on October 14, Zelenskyy called the Starlink slowdown “a big mistake.”
“This decision will bring a lot of human losses,” he said.
SpaceX and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment sent on Saturday.
