Ukraine says its military forces continue to experience disruptions to critical battlefield communications, a day after President Trump declared that these restrictions had been removed.
"President Trump called Elon Musk on Wednesday and asked him to lift restrictions on a military-grade version of Starlink in Ukraine that the SpaceX chief had throttled, U.S. officials said," The Wall Street Journal had initially reported Thursday.
"The system was working more normally Thursday, shortly after their conversation, U.S. and Ukrainian officials said," the WSJ reported further. "Some Ukrainian officials said the system wasn't restored to full functionality but was working at higher speeds than under the cap."
But there are conflicting reports, with on Friday one prominent European source reporting the following:
Officials monitoring the systems said they continued to record instances of terminals losing connectivity when travelling at speeds of 161 kilometers per hour.
Serhii Beskrestnov, an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky known by his call sign Flash, confirmed that the restrictions remained in place.
"We are currently seeing no indication that the Starlink restrictions have been lifted," he wrote on Facebook on Friday.
It seems that President Trump threw Elon Musk under the bus to some extent, amid European outrage over the throttling of Starshield systems.
"I don't comment one way or the other," Trump said on Thursday. "The bottom line: He put it back."
But again, some Ukrainian officials and reports in Western media are questioning whether service has indeed been 'put back' or fully restored. Trump and Zelensky on Friday...
- ZELENSKYY: HOPEFUL THAT SPACEX, US WILL LIFT LIMITS
- US President Trump says if there is still a problem with Starlink in Ukraine, then he will sort it
Meanwhile, Dems in Congress are looking to turn this into a political fight, at a moment President Trump has been lambasting and pressuring Zelensky over long-range drone attacks on Russian oil refineries, exacerbating the global diesel crisis.
A Friday CNBC report lays out the following while highlighting additional complaints that things have not been fully brought back online:
A group of Silicon Valley U.S. House Democrats on Friday demanded the White House investigate recent interruptions of Elon Musk's Starlink internet service in Ukraine in a letter to White House chief of staff Susie Wiles.
The letter, shared exclusively with CNBC and led by California Democratic Reps. Sam Liccardo, Ro Khanna and Jimmy Panetta, comes after Starshield, the military-grade version of SpaceX's Starlink, was restricted in Ukraine for a period of time, limiting the besieged country's military capabilities.
Ukrainian officials told CNN on Friday that restrictions remained in place, despite President Donald Trump's claim Thursday that Musk had restored access. The officials said the restrictions were disrupting high-speed military drones, hampering Ukraine's ability to intercept Russian attacks and conduct operations along the front line.
The letter to Wiles demands an "immediate, government-wide investigation into the decision to restrict SpaceX's Starshield satellite-based intelligence and military support services in Ukraine."
As for whether it has been restored or not, it is curious that Zelensky himself a full week ago indicated that it had. Conflicting reports still persist at this stage.
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