Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the Starshield satellite communications system has returned to its previous operating speed following restrictions that had disrupted military operations.
"This is very important and significant for our frontline logistics and for protecting Ukraine against jet-powered Shahed drones," Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram on October 24.
Developed by Elon Musk's SpaceX, Starshield is a military-focused service that complements the company's commercial Starlink network. While Ukraine relies heavily on both systems, military units rely on Starshield for piloting drones at high speeds.
Recent disruptions have left Ukraine more vulnerable to Russian air attacks, which Moscow has launched with increasing frequency, causing significant damage to logistics, energy, and civilian infrastructure.
"The speed is now where we need it to be," Zelenskyy said, as Ukrainian Defense Minister Yevheniy Khmara had earlier told RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service that Kyiv's monitoring systems had recorded restored connectivity on equipment traveling at speeds exceeding 400 kilometers per hour (250 mph).
A Ukrainian official familiar with the matter had previously told RFE/RL that satellite connections were still being lost at speeds of around 161 kilometers per hour (100 mph) as recently as the previous day.
The development followed nearly two weeks of reported restrictions that prevented Ukrainian drone interceptors and other equipment from maintaining satellite connections at higher speeds.
Questions remain over who imposed the restrictions.
Distinguishing between Starshield and Starlink, Musk has previously said that the former is controlled by the US government, with decisions on restrictions on its speed or use made by the Defense Department and by US President Donald Trump.
In his most recent post on X, however, Musk claimed that the Ukrainian military had "violated the Starlink terms of service" and "used it for offensive drone strikes to kill people," adding that the "loophole was closed last week."
He provided no evidence and did not specify what was meant by the alleged loophole or how Starlink had been used in the reported strikes. There was no immediate comment from Ukrainian officials.
The company had already refused a request from Kyiv for access to the system for operations in the Black Sea near Russian-occupied Crimea, as well as for operations in other parts of the front line, including Kherson and Donetsk.
Musk said at the time that the request was refused because "SpaceX would be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation."
Earlier in the week, Trump's administration denied that he or anyone else in the US government had requested changes to Ukraine's access to the systems.
The Wall Street Journal, citing US officials, reported that Trump had called Musk and urged him to lift the Starshield restrictions. According to the report, satellite communications began functioning more reliably after their conversation.
Asked whether he had spoken to Musk about the matter, Trump declined to comment but later added that "if there is a problem, I will get it straightened out."
The restrictions also prompted scrutiny in the US Congress, where Democratic and some Republican lawmakers demanded answers about who authorized the changes and called for guarantees that Ukraine would retain reliable access.
Serhiy Beskrestnov, an adviser to Zelenskyy on defense technology, suggested that the restrictions on Starshield access were connected to recent tensions between Kyiv and Washington.
The first reports about limitations in Kyiv's access emerged amid concerns in Ukraine over a series of moves that Zelenskyy and some of Kyiv's Western allies said would play into Russian war.
In the past two weeks, Trump has announced a deal allowing Russian diesel imports, and waived sanctions that were about to be imposed under a law he signed last month.
Separately, Trump has repeatedly urged Kyiv to stop targeting Russian oil refineries, attributing high diesel prices to those attacks rather than to reduced energy flows from the Middle East amid the US-Israeli war with Iran.
At first, Zelenskyy appeared to support halting the strikes but said he expected Moscow to do the same.
However, after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered Russia's strikes against Ukraine to continue, the Ukrainian president said Kyiv was "done" with unilaterally pausing its own.
Russia-Occupied Crimea In Blackout As Kyiv And Moscow Trade Attacks
Trump made ending Russia's war against Ukraine a priority when he began his current term in January 2025. Talks had stalled until recently when White House envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner began a new push to find a settlement.
The Kremlin has offered no concessions, repeatedly rejecting calls for a cease-fire, continuing its relentless and deadly strikes across Ukraine, aimed at pressuring Kyiv into accepting its hard-line demands for peace.
On October 24, Ukraine's air defense forces said they had shot down 100 of the 130 drones Russia launched overnight. At least five people were killed in the attacks, which struck 15 locations across the country.
With a fifth wartime winter approaching, Russian attacks have become almost a daily occurrence. As of this year, Kyiv has responded with a campaign of its own.
On October 24, Ukrainian forces had struck two Russian industrial facilities and a military airport, the military said.
One of the facilities, located in the city of Oryol some 350 kilometers southwest of Moscow, produces components for the cruise and ballistic missiles Russia uses to attack Ukraine, the General Staff said. The other, Togliatti in the Samara region, manufactures rubber products, a key component of solid rocket fuel.
There was no confirmation of the reports from Russian officials.
Separately, most of Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula that has been occupied by Russia since 2014, lost power overnight. Simferopol, Sevastopol, Yalta, Kerch, Feodosia, and other major cities saw widespread blackouts.
Russia-installed local authorities said that mobile communication was available in only 40 percent of the area, public electric transport had been suspended in Sevastopol, and water supply was sporadic and being delivered at low pressure.
According to regional head Sergei Aksyonov, the incident was caused by a disruption affecting main-power transmission lines outside Crimea, which he claimed resulted from a drone attack.
Global Internet traffic monitor NetBlocks registered an almost complete absence of connectivity in Crimea.
While Ukraine has not commented on the incident and there was no immediate independent confirmation regarding its cause, Ukrainian monitoring channels reported a fire at a electrical substation in Russia's Krasnodar region.
