“Since last night, all Starlink and Starshield terminals used by our forces have been subject to a speed limit of 100 kilometers per hour,” the officer said.
POLITICO talked to three frontline soldiers, who all spoke on condition of being granted anonymity, as well as a Ukrainian defense ministry spokesperson and the EU’s top defense official.
The reported restrictions have revived a question Ukrainian commanders have worried about for years: how much of the country’s battlefield communications can rely on a service controlled by a U.S. company.
Ukrainian soldiers say the restrictions have halted some medium-range drone strikes over Ukraine, disrupting attacks on Russian logistics and leaving frontline Ukrainian troops with less support. The scale of the disruption — and whether it was deliberate — remains unclear.
The restrictions have brought “all medium-range strike operations to a complete halt,” the officer said, including those using mesh-based systems. These rely on a single Starlink-equipped UAV to receive and relay signals to other drones connected through a mesh network, allowing them to strike targets deep inside Russian-held territory or in areas heavily protected by Russian electronic warfare systems.
Such targets include the Donetsk region, the strategically important Novorossiya highway linking Russia to Crimea, the Crimean Peninsula itself, the Kerch area and the Black Sea.