Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday, 18 October, that the United States had resumed sharing intelligence on incoming Russian ballistic missiles with Kyiv, after a gap he put at three days. In the same interview he repeated his claim that Washington deliberately slowed Ukraine’s Starlink satellite internet service so that Donald Trump could send him a “message”.
Zelenskyy spoke to NBC’s Meet the Press, in remarks reported by The Guardian and by the Turkish agency İLKHA. The US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, called the Starlink accusation “reckless” in a separate NBC interview the same day.
Key facts
- Zelenskyy said intelligence on impending Russian ballistic missile strikes was “blocked for some period of time” and then “deblocked by the American side”, and thanked Washington for restoring it, according to The Guardian.
- He said Ukraine went three days without that intelligence during ballistic attacks, and that only the United States has it.
- He said Elon Musk’s SpaceX, the US rocket and satellite operator that runs Starlink, was responsible for suddenly limiting the speed of Starlink terminals in Ukraine.
- İLKHA reported that restrictions remained in place on Starshield, which it describes as the military-oriented version of Starlink.
- Bessent said Trump and Secretary Rubio had “categorically” denied that anyone in the administration ordered the throttling.
Why it matters
Zelenskyy’s account ties a commercial satellite internet service directly to battlefield capability. He said the speed limits hampered drone operations on the frontlines as well as some air defence missions, according to The Guardian and the aggregator europesays, which carried the same report.
That places Starlink inside a political dispute between two governments rather than a technical fault. It also follows days of unresolved questions in Washington, where nine US senators asked the Pentagon to investigate the curbs.
What Zelenskyy said about the throttling
“It was a message from [the] American government to limit the speed,” Zelenskyy told Meet the Press in the quote carried by The Guardian. “And technically, SpaceX did it.”
Asked directly whether Trump or Musk had personally ordered the restrictions, Zelensky said he did not know but believed both were involved, İLKHA reported. He added that the service would return to its previous state if Trump decided to lift them.
The two accounts are not identical. The Guardian presents Zelenskyy as attributing the instruction to the American government and the execution to SpaceX; İLKHA presents him as uncertain about who gave the order. Neither report says SpaceX responded.
Washington’s denial
Bessent, the US treasury secretary, rejected the claim outright. “President Trump and Secretary Rubio have categorically said that no one in the Trump administration did that,” he said on NBC, as quoted by The Guardian. “And I think it is very reckless for President Zelenskyy to make such a charge.”
He went on to say Zelenskyy “should be very careful about making statements like this that aren’t true”. The denial echoes the administration’s earlier position, when the White House has pointed Kyiv towards the Pentagon’s Starshield rather than the consumer Starlink service.
Zelenskyy, for his part, said of Trump: “We want to trust him and I hope that he will change his decisions,” adding that he thought the decisions were “all mistakes” that would not help Ukraine or the United States.
The wider stand-off
The Guardian reports that Trump has increasingly sought a detente with Moscow, signing a deal to import diesel fuel from Russia and waiving sanctions that both houses of Congress had voted for overwhelmingly. Washington has pressed Kyiv to stop striking refineries in Russia and to end the war quickly on Vladimir Putin’s terms, the paper says.
Trump also announced an “energy ceasefire” last week which, according to The Guardian, neither side said it had agreed to beforehand. It collapsed: Moscow continued strikes on Ukraine’s power grid and Kyiv resumed hitting Russian oil refineries.
Two people were killed and at least 17 injured as the two countries traded strikes on each other’s power infrastructure, the paper reports. One person was killed and 15 wounded overnight after Ukraine used more than 1,000 drones against Russian oil depots, logistics facilities and datacentres — one of its largest aerial bombardments. Russia’s defence ministry said it downed 1,015 drones.
Where this leaves the Starlink question
On the intelligence side, Zelenskyy’s position is clear: “Now it works.” On satellite connectivity it is not resolved. İLKHA’s report has restrictions still running on Starshield at the time of the interview, consistent with earlier days when Zelensky said speeds had still not been fully restored.
Neither of the three reports gives figures for the speeds before or after the limits, names the units affected, or says how many terminals were involved. None of them reports any change to Starlink pricing or availability for ordinary customers, in Africa or anywhere else.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Starshield, and is it still restricted?
İLKHA describes Starshield as the military-oriented version of SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet system. According to that report, Zelensky said Ukraine continued to face speed restrictions on Starshield even after the intelligence pause ended.
Did Zelensky say the restrictions could be reversed?
Yes. İLKHA reported that Zelensky said the service would return to its previous state if President Trump decided to lift the restrictions. He did not, in that account, say when or whether he expected that to happen.
Who in the Trump administration is Ukraine dealing with on this?
Zelenskyy said on Sunday that he had spoken with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the two Trump envoys charged with ending the war, The Guardian reported. He described Ukraine’s contact with the administration as “virtually nonstop communication”.
How did Trump respond to Zelenskyy’s comments?
The Guardian reported that Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Sunday night that he was negotiating a peace between Russia and Ukraine and making “great progress”, but claimed Zelenskyy did not want the war to end and “probably never did”.
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