“Really, yes … but it’s a little bit more complicated than just my emotions or my feelings.” That was Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s answer in a London TV interview when asked whether he felt betrayed by Donald Trump over a sudden squeeze on Ukraine’s military access to Starlink. “It’s a pity that we are losing, we are losing a strong partner,” he added.
The Ukrainian president was in Britain to meet Prime Minister Andy Burnham, after seeing King Charles at Buckingham Palace earlier on Wednesday. The Guardian reported that he accused Trump of picking the other side more than four years into the war.
The outage
Overnight, Ukraine’s military reported that, with no explanation, Starlink terminals moving faster than 100mph had stopped working. The system is built by Elon Musk’s SpaceX but managed by the US government. Serhiy Beskrestnov, an adviser to Zelenskyy on military technology, said the outage hit military users of a version of Starlink and looked targeted.
“Our armed forces did not receive a warning about these restrictions and this led to the failure of a number of missions,” said Beskrestnov, who also writes a widely read military blog. “It’s clear that this action cannot be a coincidence and is connected to the current political situation.”
Most of the long-range drones Ukraine uses behind the front lines were effectively rendered unusable. The limit also touched what Beskrestnov called “the most current effective solution” against jet-powered Shahed drones: interceptors that depend on Starlink. Interception rates for the Shaheds had already fallen from more than 90 percent to about 60 percent when Russia switched them to jet engines in early summer. “With their actions, our partners are depriving us of one of the few chances we have to defend ourselves,” he wrote.
Static terminals appear unaffected, so soldiers’ basic battlefield communications should continue, the Guardian reported. Ukraine’s deep strikes on oil refineries are also unaffected, since Kyiv is barred from using Starlink to hit targets inside Russia.
Musk points to Washington
Musk said the decision was not his. Starlink is not licensed to customers using weapons, he said, and the Ukrainian military is connected to a related network, Starshield, run by the US government. “Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the US government. Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS,” he wrote.
Zelenskyy was blunter in an interview with Piers Morgan. “I am sure they knew what they did, absolutely. Because it was 1am at night, Starlink was blocked by SpaceX and the United States,” he said. “This decision will bring a lot of human losses … of course, people will die.”
Missiles without warning
The outage coincided with Russian ballistic missile attacks that came with no advance warning from the US for a second night. Washington has long passed such alerts to Kyiv. Col Yurii Ihnat, an air force spokesperson, said Ukraine got no warning before the first barrage on Tuesday evening, though “foreign partners” warned of three later ones.
Trump denied cutting intelligence sharing. Zelenskyy told NPR that military advisers had received threats from the US that sharing could be limited in future.
Russia launched 39 ballistic missiles and 120 attack drones at Kyiv and Kharkiv late Tuesday, Zelenskyy said. Five big power plants and key substations were hit, and at least 600,000 people were without power. “Russia has never before shown such ostentatious disrespect toward the United States,” he said.
Trump has demanded that Ukraine stop hitting Russian oil refineries, which he blames for high diesel prices. Most analysts say the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has had a far larger effect on global energy prices. Ukraine is observing a short-term moratorium on refinery strikes while Kyiv tries to show it is ready for talks.
London’s response
Burnham told MPs Zelenskyy “would not leave empty-handed,” and said he had asked officials to draw up more sanctions and options for faster military aid. At Downing Street he promised: “We are behind you and that will not change.” He pledged to speed up deliveries of British lightweight multi-role missiles, and the UK will give £17m toward repairs to the protective roof over the destroyed Chornobyl plant.
On Trump’s proposed “energy ceasefire,” Burnham said he was ready to discuss it but noted Moscow had not kept to it. The Kremlin’s Dmitry Peskov said the truce “was not specified in detail, so it cannot be claimed that Russia is failing to observe it.”
Sources
- Volodymyr Zelenskyy feels ‘betrayed’ by Donald Trump over Starlink access
- Ukrainian military’s access to Starlink satellite internet suddenly restricted
