A war of words has erupted between the Trump administration , officials in Kyiv and Elon Musk over who is to blame for limiting Ukraine’s access to Space X’s military-grade version of Starlink. The restrictions to Starshield have rendered many of the drones used by Kyiv to strike behind the frontlines inoperable and hampered air defence systems that stop Russian attacks, according to Ukrainian officials . The US president said on Thursday that the service was running again at full speed, but a European official speaking to the Associated Press denied the service was fully functioning. What has Trump said?
Trump initially denied any responsibility for the changes to Starshield, telling reporters last Friday: “I don’t know if it was anybody, but it wasn’t me, and I don’t think it was Elon,” referring to Musk, SpaceX’s CEO.
Trump’s cabinet backed him up, with secretary of state Marco Rubio saying on Wednesday: “What I can tell you with certainty is the president of the United States nor anyone in our system ever requested that any changes to that system be made.”
Rubio, however, also made a comment that threw suspicion on to Musk, the world’s richest man.
The president has nothing to do with the decisions that are made by Starlink and Starshield and by Mr Musk. That’s a private company. The president doesn’t run that company and can’t direct that company to do anything.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that the US president had asked Musk to restore the service, with Trump later telling reporters the system was “back”.
He refused to comment on whether he had spoken to Musk, but appeared to suggest the ultimate power to limit the service rested with the SpaceX CEO. “I guess the bottom line, he put it back,” Trump said, referring to Musk.
However, John Cornyn, a Republican who is in his final weeks as the US senator for Texas, told US media that he didn’t believe Musk would have acted “without at least the acquiescence of the White House”. What about Musk? Musk has supported Trump’s calls for Volodymyr Zelenskyy to be replaced and has been highly critical of the Ukrainian president. However, he was quick to blame the limits on Starshield on the Trump administration, writing on X last week that the systems were “owned and controlled by the US government”.
Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS.
Musk – one of the Republican party’s biggest donors and a Trump ally – continued to deny responsibility for the changes. However, on Tuesday the Wall Street Journal reported that Musk made the order to slow down Starshield, with the paper’s sources in disagreement over whether this was made in concert with Trump.
Vice-president JD Vance backed Musk on Thursday, saying the billionaire “doesn’t want to get in the middle of what is a war between two state actors without the United States government effectively directing him on what to do”.
So I don’t think this is about Elon. I think it’s fundamentally what is America’s policy in Ukraine and Russia going to be.
Amid the war of words, civilian casualties in Ukraine have surged , and the question over who is ultimately responsible for limiting Kyiv’s access has remained unanswered.