White House officials gave orders to curb Ukrainian access to a vital system used by frontline forces in the fight against Russia, according to a report.
Two U.S. sources and a third Western official familiar with the matter told Reuters that the president’s office had told the Defense Department to slow down access to SpaceX’s Starshield in the embattled Eastern European country. That’s the military-grade version of the Elon Musk-owned Starlink service.
It is not clear at this stage who ultimately made that decision or who relayed it to the Pentagon. The move left Ukrainian forces unable to use the service for drone operations, though the country’s Defense Ministry said on Thursday it had resumed working on drones moving at less than 100 mph.
Russia’s relentless bombardment has already claimed at least 18 lives across Ukraine this week. At least 15 people had been killed by Thursday, with three more dying in Russian drone attacks on Friday morning. The latest strikes also knocked out electricity for some 370,000 people.
Over the past week, Washington’s relationship with its nominal ally in the conflict has reached its lowest point since Donald Trump, 80, hauled Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, 48, in for an Oval Office drubbing in February of last year. Vice President JD Vance accused him then of not being “grateful” enough for American support during Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Things have now deteriorated again after Trump signed a deal to purchase more than 1.8 million tons of diesel from Russia after Ukraine spent months targeting Moscow’s energy industry to cut off revenue for the Kremlin’s war machine.
Trump reached that agreement in a desperate bid to lower sky-high fuel costs driven by his own war on Iran. That conflict, along with its knock-on effect on affordability in the U.S., has helped Democrats gain an overall 9-point lead over Republicans ahead of the Nov. 3 race for control of the House and Senate.
The president responded to global backlash against the deal by calling for Zelensky’s ousting. His Ukrainian counterpart initially complied with an “energy ceasefire” unilaterally proclaimed by Trump in a Truth Social post, then reversed course after Russia continued pounding Ukraine’s grid.
Ukrainian forces launched major attacks on an oil refinery in Russia’s western Ryazan region on Thursday morning, defying the moratorium that Trump had declared without any apparent input from either Kyiv or Moscow.
Zelensky had announced those strikes ahead of time in a furious interview with the Financial Times. “We’re done,” he told the newspaper of Kyiv’s three-day stay of attacks on Russian energy facilities following Trump’s demands.
He also directly accused the U.S. president of capitulating to Russia’s authoritarian leader. “He speaks about it openly and loudly that he loves such people and he respects such people,” Zelensky told the FT. “Because for him people who can be leaders 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, it means they can be very strong.”
The Ukrainian president further accused the White House of pressuring him into accepting Trump’s “energy ceasefire” but threatening to withhold vital military intelligence if he did not. He revealed that Ukrainian forces had already suffered the slowed Starshield coverage, along with a loss of access to early-warning systems for incoming missile attacks.
Trump denied any plans to cut off military intel, and his officials told the Ukrainians that interruptions to military system services were the result of a glitch. Zelensky disputed that account even before sources confirmed the Starshield issues had been deliberate, telling the FT: “It was not a technical problem, it was the will.”
Musk, who owns Starshield manufacturer SpaceX, wrote in an X post on Wednesday that the network used by the Ukrainian military is “owned and controlled by the U.S. government,” and that “any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment on this story.
