Did Starlink Abandon Ukraine?

Beskrestnov wrote on Telegram: "Our defense forces received no warning about such a restriction, and this led to the failure of several operations." He added: "It is obvious that this action cannot be coincidental and is related to the current political situation."

Ukrainian authorities and military units on Wednesday accused Elon Musk's SpaceX of disrupting the technology at the heart of their field communications and drone operations.

According to Ambassador Arjan, quoted by the American "NBC" news channel, Ukrainian sources have accused Elon Musk's company SpaceX of disrupting its military operations by limiting Starlink internet services, because the country was shocked by two intense Russian missile attacks, which, according to the country, were carried out without the usual prior warning from the allies.

The Ukrainian government and its supporters, facing pressure from Donald Trump to end attacks on Russia's energy industry, fear that Washington will deliberately cut off field support to force Zelensky to make concessions at the negotiating table.

Two Ukrainian and two European officials told NBC News that Ukrainian officials and their European partners were already struggling to understand the state of U.S. intelligence sharing because the lack of warning before two Russian ballistic missile attacks on Kiev this week caused confusion.

Trump insists the United States is still sharing information with Ukraine, but as relations sour, Ukrainian officials and military units accused SpaceX on Wednesday of disrupting technology essential to battlefield communications and its drone operations.

It is suspected that Elon Musk imposed these restrictions on Ukraine at the request of Trump.

It remains unclear what may be behind the Starlink outages, although some Ukrainian officials said the timing could not be a coincidence, given that Musk is a close ally of Trump.

According to Sergey Beskrestnov, defense technology advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, SpaceX has imposed restrictions on the speed of Starlink satellite Internet terminals during the night.

"Our defense forces did not receive any warning about such a restriction, and this led to the failure of a number of operations," Beskrestnov wrote in a telegram. He added: "Obviously, this action cannot be accidental and is related to the current political situation."

A Ukrainian army unit also fighting in the southeastern region of Zaporizhia announced on Wednesday that it had to cancel some planned operations.

The "7th Rapid Reaction Corps" of the Ukrainian Airborne Forces announced that during the night it noticed "problems with the Starlink connection due to the limitations of the transmission speed"; This unit added that the mentioned changes have directly affected the drones that use this service for in-flight control.

The unit's statement said: "The drones continued to fly, but the outages made it more difficult to control them."

Beskrestnov said the restrictions applied specifically to the performance of the military version of Starlink at speeds above 100 miles per hour (about 160 kilometers per hour).

He added that Starlink has also played a vital role in Ukraine's air defenses, as it has been used to intercept jet-like drones that Moscow has launched into Ukrainian cities in recent months.

Starlink's new restrictions cut off satellite communications at speeds as low as 60 to 70 kilometers per hour, jeopardizing attacks on Russian targets and attempts to intercept incoming drones.

Zelensky announced on Tuesday (yesterday) that Ukraine did not receive any early warning from its partners about the "ballistic missile attack on Kiev" that occurred a day earlier.

Without directly referring to the United States, Zelensky said: "Information about the launch of Russian ballistic missiles helps save human lives, and this is one of the most critical issues."

Later that day, referring to another attack on Kiev, he announced that this was "the second time that no warning was given to Ukraine."