From 10% to 100%: Starshield Outages Disrupt Ukrainian Operations; SpaceX Denies Restrictions

Western media outlets, citing a Ukrainian official, revealed that outages in the military communications system Starshield over Ukrainian territory have caused increasing disruption to military operations, amid disagreement over the causes of the interruptions and SpaceX's role in them.

Axios quoted the Ukrainian official as saying that restrictions affected 10% of missions on the first day, rose to 50% on the second day, before reaching 100% of operations on the third day.

The portal noted that SpaceX, owned by American billionaire Elon Musk, once again denied accusations of restricting the operation of the satellite communications system.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced on Thursday that the military version of the Starlink system, known as Starshield, has been experiencing work interruptions for several days within Ukrainian territory.

SpaceX provides internet services via satellite to Ukrainian forces through the Starlink system, while separately developing the Starshield project to meet the needs of US government and military agencies by providing secure communications, surveillance services, and intelligence data transmission.

Russian concerns about space communications

In a related context, members of the Presidium of the Scientific Advisory Council under the Russian Security Council warned on November 6 that satellite communication services, including Starlink and OneWeb, could pose risks to social and political stability in sovereign states.

The press office of the Russian Security Council stated that the meeting addressed the main risks and threats arising from the use of Western space communication systems over the territories of sovereign states, and the potential destabilization of social and political order they may cause.