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Connection cut-off above a set speed

According to the Wall Street Journal, Ukrainian military devices have since October 14 lost satellite connectivity once they travel faster than 160 km/h („WSJ”: To Elon Musk miał ograniczyć działanie Starshielda dla Ukrainy – RMF24). The mechanism is a technical threshold that interrupts the link, not a road-traffic rule. The paper cites US officials and people familiar with the matter.

The Journal reports that Musk personally made the call (Elon Musk miał osobiście nakazać ograniczenie Starshield dla Ukrainy. Nowe doniesienia – Onet). These are findings by the newspaper based on anonymous sources; neither the US government nor SpaceX has confirmed the decision publicly in the reporting cited here. Military analyst Michael Kofman of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace later said that the current limit is below 130 km/h. That figure is his own assessment and is not a finding of the Journal.

Contact with Trump

The paper reports that Musk spoke with Donald Trump once information about the restrictions became public, and that one source says the conversation took place before the decision was made. Some officials in the administration, speaking anonymously to the Journal, believe Musk acted on his own and that the president did not order retaliation against Ukraine.

Competing accounts

Trump denied that he decided on the restrictions himself. On Monday, October 20, he told reporters he did not know who had made the decision and said he intended to find out. Musk responded on X that the Pentagon was responsible for the restrictions and that final decisions rest with the president. On Tuesday, October 21, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the department had not withdrawn any services, but noted that Starlink can set the terms on which its services are provided.

Talks at the White House

According to the Journal, SpaceX representatives held talks at the White House aimed at agreeing on a common line: that the decisions were taken with the consent of both the company and the Trump administration. This is the paper's account of an attempt to align the narrative, not a confirmed agreement.