Trump Makes A Call As Ukraine Battles Musk’s Satellite Restrictions
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Freedom Is Back In Style
President Donald Trump reportedly called Elon Musk on Wednesday and asked the SpaceX chief to lift restrictions on a satellite communications system that had disrupted Ukrainian drone operations.
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Service improved Thursday, although some Ukrainian officials said it had not returned to full functionality, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing U.S. and Ukrainian officials.
Trump confirmed that the restrictions had been eased, though he declined to directly confirm the call. “I don’t comment one way or the other,” Trump told reporters Thursday when asked about the Journal’s reporting. “The bottom line: He put it back.”
The president later said, “Whether I called or whether somebody else called, doesn’t make any difference.”
Musk had ordered a slowdown of Starshield, a military-grade version of SpaceX’s Starlink satellite network, The Daily Wire previously reported. The restrictions rendered some Ukrainian attack drones and interceptor drones ineffective at high speeds, hampering operations against Russian forces.
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Trump reportedly told Musk he was frustrated that speeds remained capped at around 100 miles per hour, a limitation that prevented some Ukrainian drones from maintaining connectivity above that speed.
“Removal of the throttle limit will do much to enable Ukraine’s strike capabilities at operational depths and its current effort to scale up deployment of jet-powered interceptors,” Michael Kofman, an expert on the war at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told the Journal.
The administration and Musk have offered conflicting accounts of who controls the restrictions. Trump has denied ordering the slowdown or knowing who was responsible.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday that decisions about Ukraine’s access to Starlink were up to SpaceX and Musk, rather than the White House. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth similarly said the company could make decisions under its terms of service.
Musk previously wrote on X that “any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS.”
The dispute follows tensions between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky over Ukrainian attacks on Russian energy infrastructure. Trump has blamed the refinery strikes for elevated fuel prices and urged Zelensky to stop them. Musk also criticized Zelensky, writing on X that the Ukrainian leader had “gone too far.”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) announced an investigation Thursday into how Starlink was degraded for Ukraine without notice. In letters to Musk and Hegseth, Blumenthal questioned who controlled the service and what safeguards existed to prevent a similar disruption.
“This decision to limit critical technology for a key ally not only put Ukrainian forces at risk and their people in peril, but raises serious questions about who controls critical capabilities the U.S. government has spent billions of dollars to procure,” Blumenthal wrote.
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I am just an average American. My teen years were in the late 70s and I participated in all that that decade offered. Started working young, too young. Then I joined the Army before I graduated High School. I spent 25 years in, mostly in Infantry units. Since then I've worked in information technology positions all at small family owned companies. At this rate I'll never be a tech millionaire. When I was young I rode horses as much as I could. I do believe I should have been a cowboy. I'm getting in the saddle again by taking riding lessons and see where it goes.
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