Marco Rubio denies the White House’s involvement in Starlink outages in Ukraine and distinguishes the commercial service from the Starshield military system

Context: Congress and the White House came under scrutiny following allegations concerning restrictions on Starshield and the impact on Ukrainian defense

Before Marco Rubio’s statements, a bipartisan group of U.S. senators called for an investigation into the interruption of Ukraine’s access to Starshield, the military version of the Starlink network. The senators argued that the incident may have affected Ukrainian forces’ ability to detect and intercept Russian drones and may have endangered U.S. personnel in the region, requesting clarification about possible decisions by the Department of Defense or contractors.

At the same time, Reuters reported that the order to limit Starshield may have come from within the White House, amid pressure on Kyiv to halt attacks on Russian refineries. Ukraine requested explanations, and according to some reports, the terminals temporarily stopped operating at high speeds before returning, but with reduced performance.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk stated that any slowdown or limitation of Starshield is decided by the U.S. government, not SpaceX, and distinguished between Starshield (military) and Starlink (commercial). The dispute was also fueled by Ukrainian allegations that the restrictions were linked to pressure from the Trump administration, while President Volodymyr Zelensky suggested that the problems may have been caused intentionally.