UK defence minister and US counterpart applaud return of Starlink in Ukraine
Britain's defence secretary Wes Streeting said he and US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth welcomed the reinstatement of Starlink service for Ukraine, without commenting on the cause of the outage.
In a televised interview, UK defence secretary Wes Streeting said he and US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth welcomed the recent restoration of Starlink connectivity for Ukraine. The discussion did not cover the reasons behind the earlier interruption of the service. Streeting emphasized that he would not guess why the outage occurred.
Ukraine had earlier claimed that SpaceX had throttled Starlink, hampering its offensive and defensive drone missions. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk later stated that the United States government was managing the system's speed limits. Both ministers noted the importance of the restored service for Ukraine's defence capabilities. No further details on the cause of the disruption were provided.
Why it matters
Restored Starlink connectivity aids Ukraine's defence and highlights US-UK coordination on military communications.
How this story developed
- Oct 8 Ukrainian drone strike ignites fire at Yandex data centre in Ryazan
- Oct 8 Yandex Cloud confirmed power‑supply issues and issued a customer advisory following the incident.
- Oct 9 A drone strike in Kaluga disabled several data centre modules.
- Oct 11 Yandex’s Vladimir data centre was shut down after a drone strike.
- Oct 12 The Digital Development Ministry said it is devising protective solutions for critical infrastructure after the series of drone attacks.
- Oct 14 SpaceX has imposed a speed-based limit on its Starlink service in Ukraine, causing interruptions to combat drone missions that rely on the network.
- Oct 14 Prime Minister Burnham said he will meet President Zelensky to restore support following President Trump's easing of Russian diesel sanctions, pledging faster weapons deliveries and new sanctions.
- Oct 14 SpaceX introduced a speed‑based limitation on Starlink terminals when they are moving.
- Oct 14 A viral screenshot showing a sharp fall in Yandex bot traffic prompted experts to explain that the decline was due to routine web‑crawler requests, not a coordinated silencing of bots.
- Oct 14 Burnham announced accelerated delivery of lightweight missiles and signaled new sanctions against Russia.
- Oct 15 Speed limit was partially removed, allowing terminals to operate at speeds up to 160 km/h.
- Oct 15 Starshield service restored to normal operation after earlier speed caps.
- Oct 15 Ukrainian defence sources said communications were restored but did not confirm that all terminals are fully operational.
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