Starlink and Starshield services have returned to normal for Ukraine government and military users, Ukraine officials said, after curbs that had disrupted critical defensive and offensive operations.
Speeds began returning to normal levels on Saturday night, Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a social media post.
“The speeds are now where they need to be,” he wrote on Telegram.
Ukraine’s defence ministry said on Saturday that the connection remained stable for vehicles travelling at 250mph.
Drones grounded
Earlier restrictions imposed without warning had capped speeds at 100mph, virtually grounding the country’s drones, which are used both to intercept incoming attacks from Russia and to carry out attacks within Russia.
The US administration and Elon Musk, who is the chief executive of Starlink owner SpaceX, had both denied being responsible for imposing the speed caps, which came at a time when the administration had pressured Ukraine to stop attacking Russian oil infrastructure in order to facilitate Russian diesel sales to the US ahead of the United States’ November elections.
Late on Saturday, Musk said in a string of social media posts that SpaceX had imposed speed caps on the commercial Starlink service because it had been used for offensive attacks, in violation of its terms of service – which are different to those of the military Starshield service, which is also used by Ukraine.
This explanation deepened the obscurity around the restrictions, however, since the commercial Starlink service doesn’t operate in Russia, and cannot be used to carry out attacks there.
Carrying out drone attacks in Russia using Starlink is “technically impossible”, wrote Serhii Sternenko, a former drone adviser to Ukraine’s military, in a social media post.
“All drone missions that required satellite communication could only be carried out using Starshield,” he wrote.
Ukraine presidential adviser Serhiy Beskrestnov wrote on social media that it was “very strange that Elon Musk doesn’t know about the restrictions on Starlink in Ukraine”.
The attacks in question were instead carried out using the military Starshield service, which Musk claimed is under government control – in this case, the US government, which pays for Ukraine’s use of the network.
“What they decide to do is up to them,” Musk wrote.
The commercial Starlink service is used within Ukraine for defensive drone actions and front-line military communications.
The reported last week that Musk had ordered the restrictions, after which SpaceX officials had communicated with White House officials seeking a consensus that the administration had ordered the slowdown.