Ukrainian soldiers involved in combat operations have reported restrictions on access to Starlink satellite internet which, according to their accounts, caused several missions to fail. The Guardian reports that the problems began on Tuesday evening, 13 October. The cause of the restrictions has not been established, and the report does not indicate a complete shutdown of the service in Ukraine.
The newspaper quotes Serhiy Beskrestnov, whom it describes as an adviser to Ukraine’s president on military technology. According to Beskrestnov, terminals travelling at more than 100 miles per hour — approximately 161 km/h — lost connectivity while using a version of the system intended for the military and other security institutions. He said the armed forces had received no advance warning of the restrictions and linked the loss of connectivity to the failure of several missions.
According to the Guardian, Ukrainian activist Serhiy Sternenko was the first to report the problem. He subsequently reported that connections were also dropping at lower speeds. At the same time, he said ordinary satellite internet terminals remained operational. These accounts therefore do not suggest that the problems affected all Starlink users in Ukraine.
Cause of the restrictions remains unclear
The people quoted by the newspaper suggested a political explanation. Beskrestnov linked the restrictions to the political situation, while Sternenko suggested that SpaceX might have acted at the request of Donald Trump’s administration. These are their assessments, however, rather than an established explanation for the loss of connectivity. The Guardian article contains no response from SpaceX or the US administration on the matter.
The report, published on 14 October, is based on accounts from Ukrainian sources rather than released technical documentation. It does not specify the full extent of the restrictions, the number of terminals affected or when connectivity was restored. At this stage, the accounts describe reported connectivity problems during combat operations, not an established decision to cut the Ukrainian military off from Starlink.
