Starlink limits and missing warnings: the US squeezes Kyiv to stop and settle

Two kinds of American help faltered for Ukraine this week, as Russia pounded its power grid. SpaceX imposed a speed limit overnight on Starlink terminals mounted on Ukrainian drones, and on two nights in a row Kyiv did not get the usual advance warning from its Western partners of Russian ballistic missiles, the Associated Press reported. Russia fired 39 ballistic missiles and more than 120 drones at Kyiv, the Kyiv region and Kharkiv overnight into Wednesday, and at least 600,000 people lost power, Volodymyr Zelensky said.

“Obviously, this action cannot be a coincidence and is connected to the current political situation,” said Serhii Beskrestnov, an adviser to Zelensky, of the Starlink limit. Ukraine uses the terminals for long-range drone missions, for drones that intercept Russian ones and for logistics at the front.

What changed on Starlink

The limit applies to Starshield, the military version of Starlink, and cuts the link for terminals moving faster than about 100mph, or 160km/h. Ukraine learned of it from SpaceX customer support after it complained about operational problems, NBC News reported. “Our defence forces received no warning of such a restriction, and this led to the failure of a number of missions,” Beskrestnov wrote. A unit in the Zaporizhzhia region cancelled some planned operations.

Elon Musk pointed at the White House. “Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS,” he wrote. Two US officials told CNN that the decision was not a high-level policy choice, according to CNN’s report. Ukraine’s service was contracted through the US government until mid-May 2027. On Saturday Musk had written that “Zelensky has gone too far” with his strikes on Russian fuel sites.

Pressure to stop striking Russia

The timing fits a wider campaign. Last weekend the Trump administration warned Kyiv that it could suspend intelligence sharing and European purchases of American weapons unless Ukraine stopped its long-range strikes on Russian energy sites, CNN reported. On Saturday Donald Trump said it was time for Ukraine to get a new president, and blamed Zelensky for high diesel prices in the US, AP reported.

Cutting off intelligence is being actively discussed in the White House, one administration official told Semafor, though there is no consensus and the CIA director, John Ratcliffe, is said to oppose it. The official suggested a narrower option: ending intelligence only for targets inside Russia. Trump says intelligence sharing has not stopped. “We are helping them, and we are sharing intel,” he said on Tuesday. Ukraine’s air force said it had no warning of the first ballistic missile attack on Tuesday night but was warned about three later waves.

Kyiv has already given ground. Zelensky agreed to halt Ukraine’s months-long campaign against Russian oil refineries, and its last reported refinery strike was on Friday, AP reported. Its drones still fly deep into Russia: Moscow said it downed 902 overnight into Wednesday, and Sberbank confirmed an attack on its data centre in Saratov.

“Not the right side of history”

Zelensky said he felt betrayed by Trump. “This is not the right side of history,” he told Piers Morgan, Semafor reported. Kyiv and its allies fear Washington is using pressure, from intelligence to Starlink, “to force Ukraine to capitulate to Russia”, the Financial Times’ Ukraine correspondent wrote. “It’s a little bit more complicated than just my emotions or my feelings,” Zelensky added. “Our country has to survive.”

Europe is pushing the other way. Poland, which pays for Ukraine’s Starlink subscriptions, was blunt. “As your European customers, we are watching you,” Radoslaw Sikorski, the foreign minister, told Musk, The National reported. Kyiv later said some service was being restored, though a Zelensky spokesperson told NBC the limits were still in place late on Wednesday. In London, where Zelensky arrived on Wednesday, Andy Burnham, the prime minister, told the House of Commons that he would try to “repair bridges so that the support comes back”.

The diesel behind it

Washington’s demand is about fuel prices, less than three weeks before the midterm elections. The average US retail price of diesel was $6.179 a gallon on 12 October, 2 cents lower than a week earlier, the Energy Information Administration’s weekly survey shows. As we reported on 13 October, Washington tied the threat to cut weapons and intelligence to Ukraine’s strikes on Russian refineries.

What to watch

Whether the Starlink limit is lifted and whether missile warnings return in full will show how far Washington means to go. The Kremlin is “carefully noting” the shifts in American support, its spokesman said, but called it “too early to draw any systemic conclusions”. Zelensky may attend the EU summit in Brussels later this week, where European leaders will have to decide how much of the gap they can fill.