Ukraine's Starshield access restored after unexplained throttling during Russian drone attack
Ukraine's access to the US military satellite network Starshield was restored by Thursday after a sudden throttling during a massive Russian drone barrage, with the cause of the outage still unknown. The disruption prevented Ukraine from effectively deploying interceptor drones against attacks, including one of the most massive Shahed drone strikes, according to Ukrainian diplomat Denys Sienik. A senior US official said President Trump made no request to limit access, and the White House told Ukrainian officials it does not control SpaceX. The outage occurred amid tensions between Trump and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky, and a source suggested Elon Musk may have inaccurately linked the shutdown to the administration. Ukraine has not received answers from SpaceX or the Pentagon, deepening unease between Kyiv and Washington.