Pentagon declines to investigate Starlink outages in Ukraine

The Pentagon's inspector general has declined to investigate recent Starlink and Starshield service disruptions in Ukraine, deferring the matter to the US Air Force. The decision rejects a bipartisan request from nine senators. The senators, four Republicans and five Democrats, sought to determine who authorized the satellite communication restrictions and whether US officials were involved. They also asked whether the outages affected intelligence sharing and threat warnings. Inspector general office representative Molly Halpern said the request was thoroughly reviewed, though the decision could be revisited with new information. Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen criticized the refusal, citing conflicting explanations from the Trump administration and SpaceX. Senator Richard Blumenthal had previously launched a separate inquiry into Ukraine's lost access to Starshield, the military version of Starlink.