Ukraine's Satellite Links Reach Full Speed After Two-Week Slowdown

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on October 24 that the Starshield satellite network is running again at the speeds his forces need for frontline logistics and for shooting down jet-powered Shahed drones. He wrote on Telegram that the service is "where we need it to be."

Defense Minister Yevheniy Khmara told RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service that Ukrainian monitoring recorded restored connections on equipment moving faster than 400 kilometers per hour, which is 250 miles per hour. Khmara credited "direct dialogue and the Ukrainian president's persistent stance" for the change.

For nearly two weeks before that, satellite links were dropping at about 161 kilometers per hour, or 100 miles per hour, according to a Ukrainian official familiar with the matter. That ceiling blocked drone interceptors and other equipment from holding a connection while moving at higher speeds. Starshield is a military service built by SpaceX, the company run by Elon Musk, and it works alongside the commercial Starlink network that Ukraine also uses.

Who ordered the slowdown is disputed. An adviser to Zelenskyy on defense technology, Serhiy Beskrestnov, pointed to recent friction between Kyiv and Washington, but no connection has been established. The Trump administration says neither the president nor anyone else in the US government asked for changes. Musk has said the government controls Starshield, and that decisions on speed or use rest with the military and then President Donald Trump.

The Wall Street Journal, citing US officials, reported during the week that Trump called Musk and pressed him to lift the restrictions, after which communications became more reliable. Trump declined to discuss the call but said, "if there is a problem, I will get it straightened out." Lawmakers from both parties in Congress have asked who authorized the changes and want guarantees that Ukraine keeps steady access.

Fighting went on overnight. Ukrainian air defense forces said they downed 100 of 130 drones that Russia launched, and strikes on 15 locations killed at least two people. Ukraine's General Staff said its forces hit a military airport inside Russia along with two industrial plants, one in Oryol that builds parts for cruise and ballistic missiles and another in Togliatti that makes rubber products used in solid rocket fuel.

In the early hours of October 24, power went out across most of Russian-occupied Crimea, including Simferopol, Sevastopol, Yalta, Kerch and Feodosia. NetBlocks recorded near-total loss of connectivity. Russian-installed authorities said mobile service reached 40 percent of the area and that water arrived at low pressure. Sergei Aksyonov, the Russian-appointed head of the occupation administration, blamed a break in main power lines outside Crimea that he said came from a drone attack. Ukraine has not commented.