160km/h Cap Ends: Ukraine Confirms Full Starlink Speeds Restored

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced on Saturday that his country has regained full access to Starlink satellite communications. In a video address on Telegram, he stated that the connection is now stable and operating at the levels required for frontline logistics and defense against jet-powered Shahed drones. The restoration began overnight and was fully operational by morning.

The disruption involved a sudden speed limit of 160km/h, or 99mph, applied to Ukrainian military terminals. This restriction, which lasted ten days, caused several combat missions to fail and hampered the military's ability to intercept Russian attack drones. Some operations targeting positions behind enemy lines were cancelled, and Russian ballistic missiles struck Ukraine without prior warning from US intelligence.

Blame for the throttling shifted between Washington and SpaceX during the outage. President Donald Trump initially denied his administration was responsible, stating, 'I don't know if it was anybody, but it wasn't me, and I don't think it was Elon.' He referred to Elon Musk, the chief executive of SpaceX, which manufactures the terminals but sees them managed by the US government.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio reinforced Trump's position last Wednesday, asserting that the president does not run SpaceX and cannot direct its decisions. Conversely, Musk wrote on X that the systems are owned and controlled by the US government, implying that military officials decided on the limits. Vice-president JD Vance supported Musk on Thursday, noting that the billionaire did not want to intervene in the conflict without explicit government direction.

Zelenskyy accused both parties of coordinating the move. He described the action as a planned operation by the American government, executed technically by SpaceX. He pointed out that Starshield terminals in European Union countries faced no similar restrictions, isolating Ukraine in the limitation. Zelenskyy warned that the decision would result in human losses, a concern that intensified as the outage persisted.

The timeline of the resolution remained inconsistent in the days before Saturday. On Thursday, Trump claimed the service was back at full speed, but a European official told the Associated Press that it was not fully functioning. When asked on Friday if he would tell Musk to stop 'messing around' with Ukrainian access, Trump said he had not spoken to him but might have to. He called Musk 'very brilliant' and 'very good' while promising to straighten out any problems.

Zelenskyy thanked US allies, including Trump and the State Department, for resolving the issue. The return to pre-restriction speeds marks the end of the ten-day dispute over satellite bandwidth, allowing Ukrainian forces to resume their standard communication protocols for military operations.