Ukraine's Starlink Speeds Improve After Trump–Musk Call, Officials Tell Wall Street Journal

Ukraine's Starlink service improved after Donald Trump phoned Elon Musk on Wednesday, US and Ukrainian officials told The Wall Street Journal. But some in Kyiv said it was not yet back to full strength. Kyiv's forces use the system to fly drones and talk on the battlefield.

The call came a week after a sudden speed cap cut the link to fast drones. On Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said speeds had not been restored. Kyiv has said it got no warning and is seeking answers from Washington and SpaceX. Another official denies any improvement.

What the Journal Reported

Officials told the Journal that Trump told Musk the system was still capped at about 160km/h (100mph). He asked the SpaceX chief to lift the limits on Starshield, the military version of Starlink, but US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said Ukraine has no Starshield and uses commercial Starlink. Service picked up on Thursday, soon after the call, they said. The paper did not name its sources, and the White House did not immediately comment.

Trump would not confirm the call when reporters asked him on Thursday. 'Whether I called or whether somebody else called, doesn't make any difference,' he said. He added that Musk had restored the service and that the two men still got along very well. Earlier in the week, the Journal had reported that Musk ordered the slowdown himself. Trump had previously denied that either he or Musk was involved.

Kyiv Says the Cap Has Not Gone

Zelensky said he was awaiting Rubio's answer on allowing speeds of up to 400km/h. A Ukrainian official went further on Thursday, telling the Kyiv Independent that 'nothing has changed anywhere'. The cap remained, the official said. Last week, Zelensky called it a planned operation and said terminals sent to the EU for tests ran faster there. The slowdown came as Trump was publicly telling Kyiv to stop striking Russian refineries. No link between the two has been shown.

Musk has said that he does not set the limits. In a post on 14 October, shown above, he wrote that the US military and the president, not SpaceX, decide them. He did not reply to requests for comment on Thursday. Rubio said on Wednesday that it was a SpaceX matter, adding that it 'is governed by a private commercial contract as to how their stuff can be used'.

Why the Speed Cap Matters

The cap began without warning on 14 October, and terminals moving faster than about 160km/h lost their link. That disrupted some missions, including drones that hunt Russia's jet-powered attack drones. Supply drones for front-line troops were hit too. Zelensky said the cap stops interceptor drones from doing their job, though Ukraine has other air defences.

Zelensky has warned that people would die if the problem was not fixed. Mykhailo Fedorov, a former defence minister who first asked Musk for Starlink in 2022, has urged him to scrap the Starshield limit entirely. Zelensky said European partners are already looking for an alternative to Starlink.