‘It Wasn’t Me’: Trump Denies Ordering Starshield Slowdown for Ukraine as Zelenskyy Says Speeds Still Not Restored

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump denied on Friday that he ordered limits on Ukraine’s access to Starshield, the military-grade satellite communications system operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the service had still not returned to normal.

“It wasn’t me. And I don’t think it was Elon,” Trump told reporters as he left the White House, according to an AFP report. He added that he was “not sure” the service had “ever came down,” saying: “What I understand is, (it’s) the same as it’s always been.”

Trump’s denial landed one day after Reuters reported that the order to slow the Starshield service used by the Ukrainian military came from inside the White House, citing two United States officials and a Western official briefed on the matter. Reuters reported that Pentagon leaders had been told the service for the Ukrainian military had to be slowed, although a senior US official told the news agency: “No such request was ever made by the president.”

The dispute concerns restrictions that Ukrainian officials said they detected on Tuesday night, when Starshield terminals reportedly stopped working properly when mounted on fast-moving objects. According to the BBC, the system was limited so that anything moving faster than 100 miles per hour lost its connection — a change that directly affects Ukraine’s interceptor drones and air-defence operations against Russian attacks.

Ukraine depends on Starshield, the military-grade counterpart to SpaceX’s civilian Starlink network, for battlefield communications, mid-range strikes on Russian-occupied territory and its interceptor drone operations, AFP reported. Starshield was designed for the Pentagon and is managed through the US government.

Musk has said that Starshield is owned and managed by the US government, and that “any limits on speed or usage” of the systems are “decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS,” a reference to the president, according to AFP. Musk himself suggested the Pentagon could have been responsible for the restrictions, while Reuters reported on Thursday that the order had originated inside the White House.

Zelenskyy says restoration under way, speeds not yet normal

Zelenskyy said on Friday that the service was in the process of being restored, telling reporters that his partners had informed him that “the administration and the White House sent a message to SpaceX asking them” to restore the system, AFP reported.

Speaking after a European Union summit in Brussels, however, Zelenskyy said the capabilities had not yet returned to their previous levels. Asked whether the service had returned to its previous speed limits, he replied: “Have they returned to the previous speed limits? No. But is it coming back now? Yes.”

The slowdown coincided with deadly Russian strikes on communications and energy sites used by Ukraine’s military. The BBC reported that some 600,000 people in Ukraine were left without power in the attacks. In an interview with journalist Piers Morgan, Zelenskyy warned: “People will certainly die if these attacks continue and Starlink does not work… I really hope this is a technical error, I don’t know, but we are demanding the restoration of the service,” according to a summary of the reporting.

The incident has drawn the attention of the US Congress. A bipartisan group of US senators has signed a letter calling on the Department of Defense’s Office of Inspector General to open an investigation into the disruption and its effects on US personnel and Ukraine’s defensive operations, according to reporting on the congressional response.

A week of escalating tension between Washington and Kyiv

The Starshield dispute is the latest flashpoint in a tense week between Washington and Kyiv. Earlier in the week, Trump publicly pressured Ukraine to halt its strikes on Russian oil refineries, which he blamed for rising energy prices ahead of the November 3 midterm elections. Ukraine briefly paused the strikes but has since resumed them, and Russia has continued striking Ukraine’s energy infrastructure throughout the week, according to CNN.

Trump had also criticised Zelenskyy personally, at one point calling the Ukrainian president “more difficult to deal with than” Russian President Vladimir Putin, and suggesting that Ukraine needs a new leader, according to Reuters reporting summarised earlier in the week. On Friday, however, Trump struck a warmer tone, telling reporters as he left the White House that he had a good relationship with his Ukrainian counterpart.

The friction has been compounded by a controversial diesel deal between the United States and Russia, under which Washington agreed to buy Russian-origin diesel to ease domestic fuel shortages — a move Zelenskyy condemned as funding the war, according to reporting from the time. On Friday, Trump signed an executive order waiving most of the new sanctions and tariffs under the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, just two days before the penalties were due to take effect, a development reported by multiple outlets.

Separately, the United States had warned it could withhold intelligence sharing, which is crucial for Kyiv’s defences, if Ukraine did not stop striking Russian oil refineries, according to reporting on the dispute.

Zelenskyy’s reported offer

Against this backdrop, Zelenskyy has signalled a possible path to de-escalation. The Wall Street Journal reported that Zelenskyy is open to stopping attacks on Russian oil refineries for 100 days in exchange for a 300-kilometre extension of Starlink satellite internet service coverage for the Ukrainian military, according to a news summary of the Journal’s reporting. Trump had earlier welcomed Ukraine’s initial pause on the refinery strikes.

Ukraine has framed its refinery strikes as retaliation for Russian attacks on Ukrainian energy and data infrastructure — including strikes on data centres that have also disrupted the Russian technology company Yandex, according to CNN.

Analysis: Why It Matters

Trump’s denial deepens, rather than resolves, the central mystery of the week: who throttled a military satellite network in the middle of a war. The sequence of statements reads like a carefully choreographed circle of blame. Reuters reports that two US officials and a Western official say the order came from inside the White House; a senior US official says the president never made such a request; Musk says limits are decided by the US military and “ultimately POTUS”; Trump says it wasn’t him and he doesn’t think it was Musk. Each statement is technically compatible with the others — an order can come “from inside the White House” without the president personally requesting it — but that compatibility is precisely what leaves accountability nowhere.

The episode exposes a structural vulnerability that has been building since a private company became a pillar of a war effort. Ukraine’s drones, air defences and battlefield communications ride on infrastructure owned by one man and leased through one government. When the terminals slowed on Tuesday night, there was no public chain of command to appeal to, no military operations centre to call — only a scramble of statements between Washington, Kyiv and Musk’s account on X. For an ally’s military capability to be toggled by ambiguous administrative decisions, with the intended victim learning about it from malfunctioning hardware, is a precedent that will worry every country that outsources critical defence functions to commercial networks.

There is also the question of timing. The slowdown arrived just as Trump was applying maximum pressure on Ukraine to stop hitting Russian refineries — pressure that serves two stated White House goals: lower energy prices before the November 3 midterms, and a diplomatic opening built partly on the new diesel arrangement with Moscow. Whether the throttle was deliberate leverage, a technical glitch or a Pentagon-level decision never explained to the White House, its effect was to demonstrate, at the exact moment of peak disagreement, how much of Ukraine’s war effort passes through a switch the United States can flip.

The bipartisan Senate call for an inspector general investigation is the most consequential part of the story. It means the disruption will not be buried under the news cycle: a formal DoD probe can subpoena records, establish who issued the order and whether the slowdown endangered US personnel or allies. Eighteen days before the midterms, that investigation gives Democrats — and uneasy Republicans — a procedural vehicle to keep the episode alive, and it raises the political cost for the White House of any further quiet throttling.

Finally, Zelenskyy’s reported offer — a 100-day halt on refinery strikes in exchange for extended Starlink coverage — reframes the satellite network as a bargaining chip in diplomacy itself. If Kyiv is trading its strike campaign for bandwidth, then Starlink is no longer just a tool of war; it is a currency of war. That is an astonishing position for a private communications network to occupy, and it makes Musk — and any future owner of comparable infrastructure — a de facto participant in conflict negotiations. The war in Ukraine is writing the first draft of how humanity governs the intersection of private space infrastructure and public warfare, and this week’s mess is the clearest sign yet that the rules are being written in real time, by accident.

What to Watch Next

1. The DoD inspector general investigation. Whether the Pentagon opens a formal probe — and what its records show about who ordered the slowdown — will determine whether this episode ends in accountability or ambiguity.
2. Whether full speeds return. Zelenskyy said the service was being restored but speeds were not yet back to previous limits. Ukrainian battlefield performance against Russian drones in the coming days will be the real measure.
3. The 100-day refinery-strike offer. If the White House takes up Zelenskyy’s reported proposal — a halt on Russian refinery strikes for extended Starlink coverage — it would directly affect oil prices ahead of the November 3 midterms.
4. Congressional reaction. Twenty-two lawmakers already wrote to Trump on October 15 urging enforcement of the Graham Act sanctions and an end to the diesel deal. The Starshield probe could add a second front of congressional scrutiny.
5. Who decides the next throttle. Whether the White House establishes a public chain of command for Starshield/Starlink decisions in conflict zones will shape how allies and adversaries view American-controlled commercial infrastructure.

Sources

• AFP: “It wasn’t me” — Trump denies cutting Ukraine’s Starshield access (via Malay Mail)
• The Insight International: Trump denies limiting Ukraine’s Starshield access as Zelenskyy says speeds are not restored
• NewsATW: Trump denies limiting Ukraine access to Starlink network
• Disclosure News: News Burst 17 October 2026 — Zelenskyy’s 100-day offer reported by the Wall Street Journal