Zelenskyy says Starshield problems are letting Russian drones strike Ukraine

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday that many Russian Shahed drone strikes on electricity substations were reaching their targets because of continuing Starshield restrictions along the front line and in Russian-occupied territory.

He said Ukrainian interceptor drones were losing contact with their operators at 161 km/h (100 mph), leaving them unable to catch Russian jet-powered Shaheds. The reported limit concerns the speed at which a terminal can move while connected, not the speed of its internet connection.

Zelenskyy did not say how many attempted interceptions or strikes had been affected. He said Russia had used more than 2,300 attack drones, 1,590 aerial bombs and 15 missiles against Ukraine that week; those figures are for weapons used, not strikes attributed to the Starshield problem.

SpaceX denied that it had made a change. “This is false. There has been no change,” a company official told The War Zone on 12 November. Ukrainian officials told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that SpaceX had also referred to technical problems in discussions with the defence ministry. Zelenskyy said he did not believe that explanation.

On 12 November, the president said Ukrainian units had already been reporting disruptions for several days. Denys Sienik, Ukraine’s senior diplomat in Washington, told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty on 14 November that daily tests in multiple directions continued to show restrictions.

The dispute follows an earlier episode in October, when reported speed limits disrupted Ukrainian drone operations. On 24 October, Ukraine’s defence ministry said it was recording stable Starlink and Starshield connections at movement speeds above 400 km/h. The cause and full extent of the problems reported in November remain unclear.

Two US Democratic senators have asked SpaceX to preserve records relating to restrictions on Ukraine’s use of the services.