WASHINGTON / OSLO — Elon Musk last week ordered the slowdown of a military-grade version of SpaceX's Starlink satellite service that Ukraine relies on, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, citing US officials and people familiar with the matter, according to Reuters. Reuters said it could not immediately verify the report, and that Musk, SpaceX and the White House did not immediately respond to its requests for comment — so the claim is reported here as the Journal's report, not as settled fact. Ukraine uses Starlink for battlefield communications and drone operations, and the report said restricting the satellite service hampered the country's attack and air-defence drone missions against Russia.

The Journal reported that Musk and US President Donald Trump discussed the Starlink decision in a call soon after the slowdown became public, while the president was campaigning last week, and that the two had also discussed the matter before the decision to throttle Starlink. Reuters had earlier reported exclusively that the order to limit the satellite system came from inside the White House. Trump said last week that he did not think either he or Musk was responsible for Ukraine losing Starlink access, while Musk said any limits on speed or Starship use were decided by the US military or the president, according to the Reuters report.

The dispute surfaced publicly in Oslo on Tuesday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in the Norwegian capital in a bid to repair relations with Washington, said he had discussed issues including 'the situation with Starlink/Starshield, which needs to be restored' with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday that Washington had not pulled back Ukraine's ability to access Starlink's satellite network, but signalled the problem lay with the terms of service Kyiv needed to comply with.

Starlink — and its military-grade Starshield variant — has been one of the war's most consequential technologies: Ukrainian units use it to coordinate artillery, reconnaissance and long-range drone strikes in areas where Russia has destroyed conventional communications. Any sustained slowdown would therefore matter far beyond a commercial dispute, which is why Kyiv raised restoration at the Oslo talks on the future of the war itself. What remains unconfirmed is who ultimately ordered the slowdown and on what terms full service will resume; Awaaz Punjab will update this story as SpaceX, the White House or Kyiv respond on the record.

Sources: Reuters, 'Musk ordered slowdown of Starlink service used by Ukraine's military, WSJ reports', 20 October 2026; The Wall Street Journal report cited therein, October 2026.