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Ukraine alleges they were recently denied access to Starsheild, a military-grade version of Starlink that is owned and operated by the US government.
By Brad Randall, Broadband Communities
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is claiming that restrictions to their use of Starlink’s military-grade version, known as Starshield, have been taken advantage of by Russian forces.
Posting on X, Zelensky said Russian forces launched one of the largest of the attacks of the war soon after the restrictions took hold.
“It is clear that the Russians are trying to take advantage of the problems with Starlink in Ukraine, as our interceptor drones depend on this connection among other things,” he posted on Wednesday.
Elon Musk, Starlink’s CEO, then made his own post, alleging that decisions about Starsheild’s use ultimately lie with the US government.
“Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS,” Musk posted.
Musk, however, also said “usage of Starlink is limited to civilian or defensive activities,” adding that the service “cannot be used for offensive military action, as doing so would be inappropriate for a commercial company.”
According to published reports, Ukrainian terminals travelling more than 100 miles per hour that were using Starshield lost connectivity suddenly during the outage.
Zelensky has also accused the US of failing to share intelligence regarding ballistic missile launches by Russia, causing a breakdown in relations between Kiev and Washington.
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