Trump says he did not order the Starlink slowdown that hit Ukraine's defenses

The story

President Donald Trump on Friday denied that he ordered the limits placed this week on the Starlink satellite service that Ukraine's armed forces depend on. "It wasn't me, and I don't think it was Elon," he told reporters at the White House, adding that from what he understood, things were "the same as it's always been."

Ukrainian officials said on Tuesday and Wednesday that service through Starshield, the military version of Starlink, had been slowed without warning. The limits cut off connections for drones and other craft moving faster than 160 kilometers per hour, which Kyiv says made it harder to stop Russian drones during deadly attacks on Tuesday night.

Elon Musk, whose company SpaceX runs the network, said on X that Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the US government, and that any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately the president.

A senior US official also said the president never asked for the restrictions. Several officials speaking anonymously have said the order came from somewhere inside the White House, though they did not say who made the call. The White House has not said whether anyone else in the administration requested it.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Friday that the service was never fully switched off, but that the speed limits hurt some military and humanitarian work. Speaking at an EU summit in Brussels, he said Kyiv had been given signs by the White House that full service would return.