The 100 mph limit on SpaceX's military satellite network is back, the same week Trump's envoys landed in Moscow.
BREAKING | By Joseph J. Jackson | KYIV (Nov. 12, 2026)
The short version
Zelenskyy says Starshield, the military version of Starlink, is being capped at 161 km/h (100 mph) over Ukraine again. Terminals moving faster lose their link.
Ukraine's interceptor drones need that speed to catch Russia's jet-powered attack drones. Zelenskyy says strikes have already gotten through.
A cap at the same line ran from Oct. 14 to Oct. 24. Who ordered either one hasn't been publicly confirmed.
Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner landed in Moscow on Thursday for talks with Putin.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday that Starshield, the military version of SpaceX's Starlink, is being held to a systematic speed cap over Ukraine again. Terminals moving faster than 161 km/h (100 mph) are losing their connection.
He said units had recorded the disruptions for several days, along the whole front line and over Russian-occupied territory. He made the statement in a post on X after briefings from Defense Minister Yevhenii Khmara and Commander-in-Chief Mykhailo Drapatyi. He said Ukraine's military had looked into the outages and found "not random errors but systematic speed restrictions."
Why 100 mph matters
Ukraine uses fast interceptor drones to chase down Russia's jet-powered attack drones. Under the cap, those interceptors lose their link before they're fast enough to catch the target. Zelenskyy said strikes have already gotten through because of it, and that the cap is "helping the Russians kill more Ukrainians." He said Kyiv is trying to find out what's behind it with "the American side."
This has happened before
A cap at the same 161 km/h line started Oct. 14 and lasted until Oct. 24, when Ukraine's Defense Ministry again recorded stable links above 400 km/h, Euromaidan Press reported. At first Elon Musk said limits like that are decided by the U.S. military and, in the end, the president. The Wall Street Journal later reported that Musk ordered the October cap himself. After full speed came back, Musk said SpaceX had been enforcing its own terms. Nobody has publicly confirmed who ordered the new cap.
The timing
On Thursday, Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner landed in Moscow. They were met by Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia's sovereign wealth fund, ahead of talks with Vladimir Putin. They came straight from two days of U.S.-Russia-Ukraine talks in Abu Dhabi that ended without a breakthrough. Kushner said the Moscow meeting would focus on humanitarian relief, prisoner releases and getting European countries added to the talks, CNN reported. The envoys are expected to meet Zelenskyy afterward.
No evidence so far ties the cap to the Moscow trip. But Ukraine's ability to knock Russian drones out of the sky got weaker during the same week Washington sat down with the Kremlin.
Europe is paying attention
Zelenskyy raised the issue at the European Political Community summit in Dublin on Thursday. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said she would take it up with the Americans. The European Commission said the reports would be unacceptable if confirmed.
FMNN will update this story as SpaceX, the Pentagon or the White House respond.
Sources
Photo: A Ukrainian soldier sets up a Starlink terminal. Support Forces of Ukraine Command via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0.