Elon Musk has said his company imposed limits on the use of its Starlink satellite system in Ukraine last week, after curbs led to disruption to Ukrainian military operations.Ukraine said Saturday that both Starlink, run by Musk’s SpaceX, and its military variant Starshield were now fully functional after the long outage, two days after President Donald Trump indicated Musk had been asked to “put it back.”In a series of posts on X on Saturday night into Sunday morning, Musk accused Ukraine of violating “Starlink terms of service” by using it for offensive drone strikes.“That loophole was closed last week,” the billionaire wrote.“Using Starlink, a civilian commercial service, for offensive drone strikes to kill people has never been allowed, nor should it be,” he added.
In a separate post, he said: “We simply enforced our terms of service when they were bypassed.”SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Neither Musk nor the United States government had initially taken responsibility for imposing the curbs last week, with Musk saying with respect to Starshield that “any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS.”00:15Trump says he 'wasn't involved' in limiting Ukraine's Starlink access00:0000:00Starlink technology has been critical to frontline communications and Ukraine’s ability to intercept jet-powered drones since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of the country in 2022.Ukraine does not rely on the systems for long-range drone operations within Russia, though it is used for military operations in Ukrainian territories unlawfully annexed by Russia.Ukrainian officials said the restrictions were imposed without warning and capped Starshield operations at speeds of 100 mph, hampering the military’s ability to intercept drones and forcing the cancellation of some operations.
“Starlink remains critical to the defense of Ukraine, as it is the only system that cannot be jammed o...