SpaceX founder Elon Musk confirmed that Ukraine violated the terms of service for using Starlink, which is the civilian analogue of the military-run Starshield, by using it in lethal offensive drone attacks. Zelensky candidly disclosed in mid-October that “We also use Starlink for mid-range strikes against enemy military targets in our temporarily occupied territories” so Musk’s claim is irrefutable. This contextualizes the reported slowdown of its services earlier in October amidst new tensions with the US.
One of the “Five Reasons Why Trump Is More Serious Than Ever About Cutting Deals With Putin” is because “Trump Feels Challenged To Assert Himself As The Alpha” after Zelensky explicitly defied his demands not to target Russian refineries. It’s therefore entirely plausible that he and Musk agreed to temporarily slow down Ukraine’s use of Starlink and Shield to send Zelensky a message. The resultant confusion over who was responsible was probably deliberate so as to diffuse perceived responsibility.
Returning to Musk’s recent posts, the cited one saw him remind everyone that “Starlink remains critical to the defense of Ukraine, as it is the only system that cannot be jammed or blown up, at least for now. 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. Starlink was also crucial to preventing Russia from overrunning Ukraine in the early days of the war, as all other means of communication were destroyed or jammed by Russia.”
He soon thereafter posted a follow-up declaring that “It can be used for infrastructure that is military, but it cannot be used for unequivocally offensive strikes that make it fair game to be struck back”, thus confirming that it can be used for military communications but not lethal offensive drone attacks. All of his preceding claims are true, especially the indispensable role that his technology has played in perpetuating the conflict, which makes him a direct participant in hostilities.
Musk knows this, which is why he added in the abovementioned post that “An adversary blowing up Starlink satellites would create a domino effect of destruction that would generate a vast field of debris making space unusable”, hence why he’s now curtailing Ukraine’s illicit use of his technology to avoid that. To be sure, he obviously knew that this was going on for years already, but his volte-face was likely coordinated with Trump to punish Zelensky for his defiance and coerce him into a peace deal with Putin.
Given all that’s happened since the failure of Zelensky’s 40-day influence operation to coerce Putin into a ceasefire without preconditions, Ukraine is unlikely to obtain Starlink/Starshield use over all of Russia like Zelensky earlier demanded. This is especially so after Musk wrote at the end of his first tweet that “I have nothing but UTTER CONTEMPT for the virtue-signaling evil warmongers who push for endless slaughter and offer no realistic solution to the conflict. May you burn in hell.”
After Musk and Trump already demonstrated that Ukraine’s use of Starlink/Starshield can be throttled in an instant, therefore risking the collapse of the entire front line if taken to the extreme of a full-scale shutdown, Zelensky might be more pliable to a peace deal with Putin. If he remains obstinate and the Musk-Trump duo become reluctant to punish him through the aforesaid means, then Zelensky will exploit that to the hilt, thus making their latest peace push all for naught.
