While Elon Musk was on stage in Texas advertising a flying Tesla on October 16, his other venture, SpaceX, was reshaping geopolitics in Ukraine.
SpaceX operates Starlink, the satellite communication system that has played a crucial role in Ukraine’s resistance to Russia’s full-scale invasion. Its military-grade spin-off, Starshield, has become a backbone of Ukrainian military communications and of its drone warfare.
On October 14, reports emerged that Starlink services in Ukraine had been cut off for Ukrainian drones moving at speeds exceeding 100mph. Initial disruptions had even affected slower units, reportedly causing them to fall from the skies.
The restrictions hampered Ukraine’s ability to conduct drone strikes in Russian-occupied territory. They also made it harder to detect and intercept Russian attacks. This was felt in Kyiv and other big cities, where nightly strikes killed civilians and left hundreds of thousands without electricity.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, also implied that intelligence sharing with the US had temporarily stopped, leaving early-warning systems unable to detect the incoming strikes.
Musk remains firmly in control over SpaceX – and, by extension, Starlink. After taking the company public this year, a special type of stock provides Musk with about 82% of voting power.
Musk’s decisions have interfered with Ukraine’s war efforts before, as my research highlights.
Shortly after Russian forces crossed into Ukraine in February 2022, SpaceX began supplying large numbers of Starlink terminals. In the years since, the Ukrainian military has become deeply dependent on the system – both on the battlefield and for defending its cities from Russian attacks.
But, as counter-attacking Ukrainian troops began to liberate territories occupied by Russia, they reported outages in communication which were hampering their efforts.
Musk subsequently refused a Ukrainian request to use Starlink services over Crimea, saying that the peninsula belonged to Russia historically and predicting that the Kremlin could use nuclear weapons if Ukraine were to retake it.
In February 2023, SpaceX imposed speed limits to prevent Ukrainian drones from using the system, arguing that Starlink was “never intended to be weaponized”.
These measures meant that just as Ukraine successfully began to recapture occupied territory, its advances were constrained by the US company.
It is important to remember who was in the White House at this stage. Joe Biden was an active supporter of Ukraine’s war efforts, both diplomatically and in terms of military aid. So the Biden administration negotiated arrangements with SpaceX to secure the future provision of Starlink, which deepened its military ties with the company.
SpaceX and US geopolitics
With the Trump administration, the situation has fundamentally changed. The US has concluded a controversial “diesel deal” with the Kremlin, securing Russian diesel supplies to the US in exchange for sanctions relief.
The deal will depend on Ukraine stopping its campaign of drone strikes against Russian oil infrastructure, which has effectively crippled Russia’s diesel sector. Against this backdrop, a Ukrainian government spokesman surmised that the disruptions to Starlink “cannot be a coincidence” but were “associated with the current political situation”.
Unlike in 2022, geopolitical visions in the Trump White House and at Musk’s Starbase in Texas now appear to align. Both Donald Trump and Elon Musk are arguing that Putin wants peace. Both have said that Zelensky should be replaced as Ukrainian president.
Much attention has focused on who ordered the latest restrictions on Starshield. Musk initially argued that the system is owned and controlled by the US government and that “any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS”.
He has since accused Ukraine of violating Starlink’s “terms of service” by using the “civilian commercial service, for offensive drone strikes to kill people”. On his platform X, Musk announced that the “loophole” had been closed, reminding his audience that “were Starlink to be turned off, the Ukrainian front line would collapse immediately”.
European concerns over technological dependency
This episode has rung alarm bells with European politicians about their countries’ dependence on US technology.
French MEP Christophe Grudler called it “unacceptable” that Ukraine’s and Europe’s security “depend on the goodwill of a single American billionaire or on Donald Trump’s decisions”.
Work continues on IRIS², a European communication satellite constellation meant to make the continent less reliant on Starlink. However, as I found when I researched Europe’s push for technological independence in satellites, the project is not expected to become operational until 2030 due to political frictions and financing issues.
For now, the priority is to quickly integrate Ukraine in Govsatcom, a programme pooling public and commercial satellite resources to provide secure government communications. This may offer a stopgap, yet EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has acknowledged the limits: “Starlink is really necessary for Ukraine. And unfortunately, in short term, Europe can’t replace this capability.”
Time could well be an issue. Elections across Europe next year could shift the EU’s geopolitical compass away from its concerted support of Ukraine. Meanwhile, member states are locked in disputes over the next EU budget. It’s a less than optimal time for Zelensky to lobby for €70 billion (£61 billion) in additional military aid amid diminishing US support.
The Starlink episode is not the first wake-up call for Europe’s sovereignty ambitions – but it may be the most consequential yet. Member states now face a monumental task. They must maintain their unified geopolitical front while looking beyond financial disagreements to find the resources necessary to support Ukraine and develop European strategic technology.
In any other scenario, the EU risks watching from the sidelines as the most significant geopolitical conflict in Europe’s recent history is decided by Washington, Moscow and the world’s first trillionaire.
Joscha Abels receives funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG), grant 526359979.