Zelenskyy urges US to remove Starshield speed limits on Ukraine
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called on the United States to drop remaining restrictions on SpaceX’s Starshield satellite internet, arguing that speed limits imposed in October break the link between interceptor drones and their operators and leave Ukraine less able to stop Russian strikes. He said Kyiv is counting on the change because of severe damage to civilian infrastructure, posted photographs from eight locations, and wrote that protecting lives and the energy system before winter “directly depends on this.”
According to Zelenskyy, interceptor drones lose contact with operators once they exceed 161 kilometers per hour, so they cannot reliably hit incoming drones or rockets. He instructed the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to work as closely as possible with Washington and with Starshield owner Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Over the past week, he said, Russia launched more than 2,300 drones, 1,590 glide bombs and 15 missiles and cruise missiles — strikes he called brutal and difficult to counter. The US government and SpaceX have given partly contradictory accounts of who set the Starshield speed limit.
Local authorities said a strike on the port city of Chornomorsk injured six people and hit a DTEK Odesa Electric Networks facility, briefly cutting power to some 41,000 customers. Ukraine’s emergency services reported six injured in Zaporizhzhia, including a two-year-old boy. Estonia, citing “clear evidence,” blamed Russia for an attempted arson attack on a drone factory and said the border between the two countries would close.
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