Musk says SpaceX closed a Starlink "loophole" in Ukraine; Kyiv says the civilian service could not be used for the strikes he described

As of 2:39 p.m. ET, Oct. 26, 2026

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said over the weekend that his company restricted Starlink in Ukraine because the country's military broke the satellite service's terms of use. Ukrainian officials said that was not possible.

"Ukraine military violated Starlink terms of service and used it for offensive drone strikes to kill people. That loophole was closed last week," Musk wrote in a post on X on Saturday afternoon, Oct. 24. In the same post, he wrote that using Starlink, "a civilian commercial service, for offensive drone strikes to kill people has never been allowed, nor should it be," and that Starshield, SpaceX's military version, "is controlled by the US government." In a reply posted Saturday night, he wrote: "We simply enforced our terms of service when they were bypassed. There has been no change to our terms of service."

Musk also wrote that Starlink "remains critical to the defense of Ukraine" and that "were Starlink to be turned off, the Ukrainian front line would collapse immediately. This is NOT a threat, it is simply a statement of fact." In the posts reviewed by GROKsiNEWS.com, he did not say which strikes he meant.

Serhii Beskrestnov, a defense technology adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, disputed Musk's account in a post on Telegram. "It's very strange that Elon Musk doesn't know about the restrictions on Starlink in Ukraine," he wrote, according to NBC News' translation. Beskrestnov said that since winter 2026, all Starlink terminals over Ukraine, including occupied areas, have had a movement speed limit of 70 to 90 km/h (about 43 to 56 mph), and that Starlink does not work over Russia. "So we PHYSICALLY CANNOT USE COMMERCIAL STARLINK for deep strikes and mid-range strikes," he wrote, as translated by NBC News. CNBC translated the line as "PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE," and the Associated Press as "physically cannot use."

Serhii Sternenko, a former drone adviser to Ukraine's Defense Ministry, wrote on X that drone missions needing satellite links could only be flown on Starshield, NBC News reported. "Ukraine did not violate the terms of use," he wrote.

SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment from NBC News. Musk and SpaceX also did not respond to CNBC's requests for comment.

The dispute follows a week of speed limits that Ukrainian officials said were imposed without warning and cut connections on terminals moving faster than about 160 km/h (100 mph), the Associated Press reported, disrupting drone and air-defense operations. Ukraine's Defense Ministry said Saturday that Starlink and Starshield service had been restored and was stable at speeds above 400 km/h (249 mph), CNBC reported. Before Saturday, Musk had written about Starshield that "any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS," NBC News reported, and President Donald Trump has said he did not make that call, according to the AP. Musk has not explained why Ukraine was not warned before the limits took effect, CNBC reported.

Related: Zelenskiy says Starlink and Starshield are back to full speed after a week of restrictions