Ukrainian officials and front-line drone units say the speed limits on Starlink's military service are still in place on Friday morning, with drones still losing their connection above 161 km/h (100 mph), hours after President Donald Trump told reporters that Elon Musk had lifted the restrictions on the Starshield network Ukraine relies on to fly its attack and interceptor drones.
Drone units began testing the limits on Thursday evening, shortly after Trump's statement. Some flights over the Black Sea recorded speeds of up to 200 km/h and the crews noted an improvement, but the signal still cut out once a drone passed roughly 160 km/h. "We accelerate above 180 km/h, fly for a couple of minutes, the connection drops. It falls to 140–150 km/h and then is re-established — but the situation is better," said a pilot with Ukraine's elite Magyar's Birds drone unit, whose call sign is Leon. "So it works better, but with constant connection interruptions." A Ukrainian government official gave the same result from the official tests: "Morning tests show the speed limits of 140–160 km/h are still there, and the navigation isn't working properly." The defence ministry stated it plainly: "As of this morning, instances of connectivity loss at speeds of 161 km/h are still being observed. There is currently no confirmation that the restrictions have been lifted."
Serhiy Beskrestnov, an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, backed the test results: "At this time, we are not observing any lifting of restrictions on Starlink. There are isolated cases where Starlink may operate slightly faster than the restrictions allow, but this is likely due to the SpaceX algorithm or specific usage conditions, rather than a lifting of the restrictions." Zelenskyy himself said on Thursday that Starlink speeds over Ukraine had not returned to 400 km/h and that he was waiting for an update from the United States, hoping for talks with Secretary of State Marco Rubio in the coming days.
Trump, speaking to reporters as he left the White House on Thursday evening, said Musk had restored the service but declined to say whether he had personally intervened: "I don't want to say. That's a very interesting situation. My relationship with Elon is very good. I don't want to comment on it, whether I called, or someone else called … The bottom line: he put it back." Trump had in fact called Musk in recent days and asked him to restore Ukraine's full access after Ukrainian officials reported the disruptions, and he told Musk he was frustrated that the speeds remained capped. U.S. and Ukrainian officials said the system was working more normally on Thursday, shortly after that conversation, but not back to full functionality — faster than under the cap, not free of it.
The restrictions have been in place for more than a week and have disrupted anything Ukrainian moving at high speed, above all the interceptor drones Kyiv depends on to shoot down Russian Shahed attack drones, along with mid-strike operations in many areas of the front line. Zelenskyy has argued the restriction was a planned operation aimed specifically at Starshield's operating speed over Ukraine, and Kyiv says it was not told for days why it had happened. In occupied Makiivka, a Ukrainian drone crashed onto a road after reportedly losing its signal.
Who imposed the cap is itself disputed, and every side has stated its position. Musk has said the U.S. government controls Starshield, the military-grade version of Starlink. Rubio told reporters on Wednesday that decisions regarding Ukraine's access to Starlink are up to its parent company SpaceX and Musk, not the White House. Vice President JD Vance made the administration's case in full: "Fundamentally, Elon Musk runs a private corporation, and I think it's completely understandable that he doesn't want to get in the middle of a war without the US government directing him on what to do. I don't think this is about Elon. I think it's fundamentally about what America's policy in Ukraine and Russia is going to be." The White House has repeatedly denied deliberately restricting the network, and Trump has denied any involvement in the original decision to slow it.
What is documented as of Friday morning is narrow and verifiable: Ukraine's own testers are still recording signal loss above 161 km/h, its defence ministry says there is no confirmation the restrictions have been lifted, and Kyiv says it is continuously monitoring the performance of both Starlink and Starshield. Whether the cap is being lifted in stages or not at all, SpaceX has not said publicly.
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