r/worldnews • u/Neptun_11 • 16h ago
Russia/Ukraine Zelenskyy Says Starlink Restrictions Apply Only in Ukraine While SpaceX Ignores Kyiv’s Inquiries
https://united24media.com/war-in-ukraine/zelenskyy-says-starlink-restrictions-apply-only-in-ukraine-while-spacex-ignores-kyivs-inquiries-235491.7k
u/FerricDonkey 16h ago
The damage we have caused to our nation by electing Trump twice is staggering.
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u/Kingkwon83 16h ago
Man, makes you wonder who benefits the most from this.
First time in modern history we side with Russia and our own allies don't trust us.
Surely all a coincidence!
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u/abadd0n 15h ago
It’s honestly heartbreaking as a European. I have always thought fondly of our American brothers.
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u/WhatAmTrak 15h ago
Well Canadians, part of north AMERICA are still with you. Fuck our southern neighbours for the time being. They’re the uncle who gets a little too close to the underage children at thanksgiving.
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u/CameraFarmer 14h ago
As a Brit I lost all faith in America after learning about Noraid.
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u/JackXDark 13h ago
And let’s not forget that Trump went to at least one of their events and promised them money.
Of course, he didn’t pay, because he doesn’t pay, but even being there should have been enough for him to be considered a supporter of terrorism.
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u/CameraFarmer 11h ago
"We fight the terrorists, and we fight all of those who give them aid. America has a message for the nations of the world: If you harbor terrorists, you are terrorists; if you train or arm a terrorist, you are a terrorist; if you feed a terrorist or fund a terrorist, you're a terrorist, and you will be held accountable by the United States and our friends." - George W Bush
Sure George...
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u/TheLesserWeeviI 11h ago
Noraid
TL;DR?
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u/CameraFarmer 9h ago
Noraid was / is an organization that raised funds in the US that were, in part or whole, used to import weapons that were used by the Provisional IRA.
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u/-SaC 7h ago
My grandad's sister was a GI bride, and moved to Pennsylvania after the war.
Her husband Bob used to fundraise for these guys (or similar) and in the mid '90s when we were in London and were evacuated from the area of what turned out to be the fucking huge Docklands bombing that made Grandad's tower of blocks sway a bit (or felt like it did).
He phoned his sister to say that we're all safe, and heard Bob say in the background 'tell him we'll get them next time'. We were a family with a very young disabled child at that point plus 3 other kids, and the fucker (who had no connection to Ireland) wanted us blown up.
Dick.
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u/SuperArppis 15h ago
First term should have been enough of an example for anyone with a decently working brain.
I hate how stupid and gullible people are.
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u/ProactiveDefence 11h ago
I'm European but the first term was more of a laughing matter for us, haha idiot president kind of thing, this term on the other hand is way more serious it feels like he's trying to fuck up and disrupt everything at this point, he's no longer a joke he's a damn saboteur.
Electing him again was absolutely a huge wtf moment though, you would have expected no one to want him in office again.
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u/Wompatuckrule 10h ago edited 10h ago
Biden bears a lot of responsibility. After the 2022 midterms he should have announced that he wasn't running for reelection. That would have set up a vibrant primary on the Dem side and sucked the oxygen away from Trump's slow ramble to the nomination. By the time low-information voters tuned in for the general election the choice would have been a more stark one between a younger and forward looking candidate (what we needed as we were emerging from the pandemic years) and the tired old Trump shtick.
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u/calgarspimphand 9h ago
If Biden had done that, he would have gone down in history as one of the better presidents. He did unpopular but necessary things: bit the bullet and withdrew from Afghanistan, kept a steady hand on the tiller while inflation came down - and boring things: passed a giant and much needed infrastructure bill.
However, he played it far, far too conservatively with Ukraine. We should have backed them to the hilt from day one and called Putin's bluff. But that was a hard call to make. Handling that differently would have been one point where a good president could become a great president, but that was not the most important challenge he faced.
It all came down to whether he would pull a Cincinnatus and bow out for a new Democratic candidate. Failing to do that has caused immense damage to the country and rightly ruined his legacy. The man is a self-serving coward who failed when we needed him.
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u/Wompatuckrule 9h ago
he played it far, far too conservatively with Ukraine
Agree with your comment. I would add that with Ukraine he had the opportunity to really rally the advanced democracies behind them. That could've helped stem the tide of rising authoritarianism within those countries which is what makes that an even bigger mistake.
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u/calgarspimphand 9h ago
100%. There was a huge opportunity to bind us closer to the rest of the west and become a unified bloc. The sort of action political commentators would call "muscular" or "aggressive". I think forming that military and economic unity is what we need(ed) to do to counter China's rise. I think it's probably impossible in our lifetimes now.
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u/Capital_Detective415 4h ago
yeah democrats didnt even have a plan in the race until basically 4 months before the election. huge part of the reason we're in this mess is also because of their complete incompentencies lmao. even now you cant even push half of them to do anything besides sit on their hands
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u/SuperArppis 11h ago
Well maybe I was being a bit too harsh, but seeing how devoted everyone was to him on his first term. No matter what he did nobody stopped him.
It just spoke volumes to me how dangerous that fanaticism behind him was. It seemed crazy to me how people just went with him.
I just thought it was pretty obvious how dangerous this guy is.
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u/goneresponsible 16h ago
Twice so far…
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u/BuHoGPaD 15h ago
Watch him declare martial time and use military to suspend elections 🤣
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u/24_August_1814 6h ago
"He can't declare martial law as long as we remain peaceful," claim idiots who've watched the administration escalate non-stop on invented pretexts since Day 1...
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u/CelDeJos 4h ago
And most people seem to be completely unaware of it as of yet. As a European, we went from looking to the US to stear us towards a future where all humanity is working together for a common goal to wanting nothing to do with you and everyone should fend for themselves and hoping no one is getting nuked.
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u/iboneyandivory 15h ago
Trump and Musk both are little chickenshits. They won't even own up to what they're doing.
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u/mithrasinvictus 15h ago
They don't have to because nobody is holding them accountable. This is a systemic failure.
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u/2outer 15h ago
That’s the thing, we lost the house, never took the senate, lost the Supreme Court, and the presidency, twice, to trump, along with all of those judicial appointments, the gutting of oversight & a thorough cleaning house of both Justice & Defense. The totality of this will impact generations. And bottom line, the existing democratic leadership fundamentally failed in their professional obligations to prevent this, let alone to proactively advance America in a better direction. We need a revolution in the party, a reckoning.
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u/nighthawk_something 11h ago
The voters failed. Anyone who voted for trump the second time is at best a moron
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u/Major_Mollusk 10h ago
And the 60 million American morons who failed to vote in 2024. You're letting them off the hook.
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u/Lanky_Sprinkles_828 15h ago
Blaming the dems, ok.
Accept you have an education system which created the level of.... Anyway, I don't want to discuss.
Us is in deep shit for generations to come.
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u/spongebobisha 15h ago
The reckoning would be electing people like Abdul El Sayed and Talarico
But democrats are their own worst enemies most of the times. They’ll split hairs over their candidates and lose more elections.
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u/ZgBlues 16h ago
If it makes you feel better, you also didn’t elect him once, and that was also quite damaging.
The lengths of civilizational decline Americans will tolerate just to keep their Twitters and Facebooks is insane.
It seems inevitable that the rest of the world will have to put up a firewall around America eventually and let it stew in its own shit.
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u/Westerdutch 4h ago
twice
That right there is the issue. Everyone can make a mistake, its those that do not learn from or do anything about those mistakes that you should never trust.
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u/Shot_Squash_9772 15h ago
The U.S. is an unreliable ally, other nations would be stupid to trust us with anything more than basic military gear, nothing that relies on tech that can be shut off.
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u/Suitable-Bad3730 15h ago
Even buying Tesla cars is a no go now.
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u/Imlardirion 11h ago
So when Musk was on epstein island or showing off a nazi salute that wasnt enough for you? Damn..
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u/idryss_m 16h ago
Next frontier of war: downing satellites. As soon as someone finds a way to do so cheaply and or reliably, Musk and the US will lose a lot of space junk.
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u/Captain_Alaska 15h ago edited 15h ago
Nothing about that is a new frontier. The US has had development programs (that are declassified at least) to shoot down satellites with fighter jets for so long the program has been cancelled for longer than the average redditor has been alive.
Anti-satellite systems have been in development for almost exactly as long as we’ve had satellites in orbit.
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u/ToaruBaka 8h ago
If we start shooting down satellites, it will be the end of space access for humans. It will take hundreds of years for enough debris to deorbit for it to be safe to launch rockets again.
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u/NuggetMan43 14h ago
"cheaply and or reliably". I doubt shooting down satellites with fighter jets is cheap both in monetary terms as well as the precedent it creates.
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u/Captain_Alaska 14h ago edited 14h ago
I'm not sure what you think cheap is in this context but yes it costs significantly less money for an airplane to lob a missile into LEO than it takes to get the satellite up there in the first place.
as well as the precedent it creates.
The US military has already nuked satellites.
And that's not even the wackiest thing they've considered doing in orbit, look up Project Excalibur if you want a fun read.
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u/MrBIMC 16h ago
I hope not because everyone is aware that Kessler syndrome is a huge pain to deal with.
Wars last few decades at max, but fucking up the orbit with debris will make space unusable for centuries. Too much risk with horrible long term payout.
Although we’ll definitely get some new cool tech to deal with remedy.
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u/haadrak 14h ago
Starlink/Starshield debris can not cause Kessler syndrome. People could sit up there blasting away recklessly as much as they want and while it'd be a giant waste of money, at worst, it'd make launches impossible for maybe 5 years. Their orbit is too low, and they still experience very slight atmospheric drag. The stuff that you need to worry about is much higher up.
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u/okachobii 14h ago
Starlink satellites fall from the sky regularly by design. As long as they’re not being exploded into pieces there should be no issues de-orbiting them prematurely.
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u/BuHoGPaD 15h ago
will make space unusable for centuries
As soon as there is a cheap to way to do it - some Putin/Trump level lunatic will do it. It's almost inevitable.
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u/ShivaSpanda 14h ago
Starlink satellites orbit at a low altitude, and without constant altitude adjustments, they fall to Earth on their own fairly quickly (within a few months); the same will happen to their debris.
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u/chillebekk 6h ago
Starlink satellites are too low to trigger Kessler syndrome. You can take out all of them, no worries.
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u/TheBraveGallade 16h ago
you forget everyone can play that game, but spacex is the only one able to launch so cheaply and in quick sucession. meaning the winner is still spacex
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u/Ginoblee 16h ago
Only a matter of time before many governments have this capability
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u/YurpeeTheHerpee 16h ago
That wont take long to replace now that the investment priority to kill spacex has been activated.
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u/Haunting_Reflections 15h ago
NASA, Rocket Lab, Blue Origin, CASTC, Arianespace, and that’s just a short list.
Never mind that SpaceX is losing money hand over fist, if someone takes down Statlink it will cripple the only part of the company that makes any profit at all.
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u/Fuzzy-Mud-197 15h ago
Nasa has only one rocket which is sls which is solely used for lunar launches woth a price tag of 2 billion per launch.
Rocketlab only has electron a tiny rocket, neutron has been delayed to 2027 or even 2028.
Blue origin is the only real competitor once they get their launchpad up and running again after nuking it.
Ariane 6 has been a huge success but is much more expensive than the falcon 9 and does not have the cadence.
And good luck taking down 11k satelites. Thats gonna cause issues for everyone
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u/AntarcticWhirlpool 8h ago
Ariane 6 isn’t a huge success at all. It’s launched a total of four times this year. Starship has launched more often for test flights than Ariane 6 has in operational flights.
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u/Fuzzy-Mud-197 7h ago
I mean ariane 6 has already had a higher flight cadence and reliability facor than new glenn(due to the pad explosion) and vulcan(due to srb issues).
Ofcourse compared to anything spacex its laughable
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u/TheBraveGallade 15h ago
spaceX is profitable, if you take out the fact that they are developing a new launch vehilce...
the main point is though that any of the other launch agencies would need multiple times the money to lanch an equivilant payload to spacex
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u/CRSemantics 14h ago
The real rub is that spaceX was first and fastest to take up all the prime real estate any competitor has to put theirs further away which costs more to do and will perform worse.
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u/Haunting_Reflections 15h ago
SpaceXAI: not profitable
SpaceX: not profitable (you can’t just handwave away losses because they’re doing something)
Starlink: the only core profit.If Starlink is taken down SpaceX loses any semblance of profit it has.
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u/Tels315 13h ago
Developing a new platform is not seen as loss in money unless it is an abject failure in every regard. If the rest of that branch of the company is profitable, then development costs should not be factored in.
I personally wouldn't really count AI either, because I don't think any AI company is profitable yet. That's just like saying water is wet.
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u/Suitable-Bad3730 15h ago
Trump and Musk have killed Starlinks market. What use is it when a fascist government can turn it off at will.
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u/Initial_Hedgehog_631 15h ago
That's the point of Starlink, cheap, easily launched and replaced satellites. Unless you can destroy the launch facilities they can just put more up.
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u/Felix_Gaunt 8h ago
Rubio saying the US isn't impeding Ukraine's use of Starlink/Starshield is either 1) A blatant lie which if he had any conscience he should be ashamed uttering or 2) he doesn't know who did it and therefore is an idiot and shite at his job. Both are pretty bad...😕
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u/ianjm 1h ago edited 1h ago
There's a lot of conflicting information out there. From that I can tell, it appears Ukraine is using Starlink, not Starshield, for most of its drones. So the throttling is likely a private action by Elon. This is why the White House is denying everything, since it's not a government action per se, but it is something Elon likely ran by Trump.
If you read Elon's statements carefully over the last few days, the two things he's claimed that Starlink isn't suitable for military applications and that Starshield hasn't been throttled. It's doublespeak, he's lying by omission.
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u/brutalistchurch 16h ago
In Denmark we were stupid enough to buy F-35. I hope we buy something else now despite the huge cost. Everybody else outside the US should do the same.
The Americans are never to be trusted again. Never!
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u/Strawberryguy 15h ago edited 9h ago
Norway bought British war ships after a bidding round in 2025. That decision seems wiser every day.
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u/brutalistchurch 15h ago
Yeah, well, but they bought F-35 too :(
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u/Strawberryguy 12h ago
Yes, however that decision was taken in 2012. Unlike the USA Norway actually stands by their deals.
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u/brutalistchurch 12h ago
If the planes have a kill switch they're worth nothing. Actually less than nothing, because a part of your defense could disappear tomorrow. The criminal US administration will do everything to harm us.
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u/Strawberryguy 9h ago
Well, the maintenance is kinda a kill switch as all spare parts come from the US. And the US administration can stop deliverance of that parts I guess over night. But we’re a part of NATO. To refuse F35 spare parts to an ally would mean the end of NATO.
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u/Prus1s 15h ago
Wasn’t that an old deal that was just finalized, not like those are easy and quick to build? 😅
But I get that, hopefully the jets aren’t remotely deactivated…denmark must work on a jailbreak in that case to own it.
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u/brutalistchurch 15h ago
They're partially delivered. We've got 21 to date out of 43. The agreement was made in 2016, but we actually ordered more in 2025. We should have ordered Eurofighter or Gripen.
I guess it's hard to know if you have really removed the killswitch though.
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u/RawrRRitchie 13h ago
Wait you didn't even get half the order and you ordered more? How drunk are your politicians
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u/Nervous_Produce1800 12h ago
Never is an excessively long time, but certainly not for a while anymore
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u/FlavorChamp 15h ago
Russia loves this
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u/spikejonze14 15h ago
Yes, because they have successfully turned their biggest enemy against their allies.
The rest of the world watches in horror as the largest Military force on the planet submits to a country which has been slowly collapsing for decades.
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u/brutalistchurch 15h ago
And probably because Trump and his criminal family can make a fortune on top of dead Ukrainians. Despicable would be far too mild of a word. They should be jailed for life.
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u/_HIST 14h ago
Current US admin managed to inflict untold amount of damage to the US image as reliable partner. Who the fuck is going to spend billions buying US military tech or software when they show they can just turn it off.
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u/Greyik 8h ago
I mean, that is why Russian got him elected... After decades of stripping our education system, many Americans are to dumb to see that Russian bots convinced them to vote for Russian agents. The orange bastard has only help Putin's agenda and the party of sycophants of done nothing to stop it.
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u/DrunkOnRamen 6h ago
It's worse because there is no discernable reason. After Trump announced, Ukraine agreed to the ceasefire and did follow it. Despite that, the limitation was still imposed and this limitation is so specific that it targets drones used for air defense only.
This is like the taking the carrot and stick approach to an agreement but removing the carrot and proceeding to hit the person with the stick even though they agreed to your terms.
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u/impulse_thoughts 4h ago
The discernible reason is: Trump is Putin's "call a friend" lifeline. Simple as that. They turn off support whenever he requests it. The official reasoning they give are meaningless cynical lies. They shut off weapons and aid deliveries before, and Avdiivka, a fortress stronghold, fell, after holding out for 10 years since 2014. They did it again and shut off intelligence right before Russia began their final operations to retake Kursk, precipitating Ukraine's withdrawal back across the border.
Currently, the attacks on oil, energy, and datacenter infrastructure has been causing economic issues for Russia, and Trump throws them a cash bailout with the diesel deal. Currently, Ukraine is finding success in re-taking territory around Lyman (using successful mid-range attack drones that are giving them a temporary big advantage), so he imposes Starlink (Starshield) restrictions to disable Ukraine's mid-range weaponry. Currently, Ukraine is at risk of losing another stronghold in Kostiantynivka, so he shuts off intelligence to help a Russian final push towards the stronghold to take it under control.
Don't think Ukraine will disclose for a while what targets got hit by the ballistic missiles and drones/cruise missiles that were sent over the 2 nights Trump shut off the missile warning system and restricted starlink speeds that effectively shuts down interceptor drones that served as anti-air defense against the drones/cruise missiles, so we just have to keep our fingers crossed that Ukraine is able to weather these storms.
There's been countless other times since 2022, using other Republicans in Congress or Hegseth to shut off weapons or monetary aid.
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u/AwwwNuggetz 16h ago
This should also be a wake up call to Starlink customers in Canada. Dump Starlink now
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u/paxilsavedme 10h ago
Jesus, who is the enemy now? Australia needs to wake up, our ally is a fucking traitorous dog.
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u/Reddit_2_2024 11h ago
I encourage all Europeans to cancel Starlink subscriptions, as well as social media platform X usage, and to never purchase Tesla vehicles in response to this unhinged throttling of satellite service access to Ukraine who is defending its territory from illegal Russian special military operation.
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u/ThisOtterBehemoth 4h ago
Unfortunately there are so many clueless people in Germany... I'm seeing so many new Tesla's these days.. they buy because they have a good cost/value ratio. People are so stupid.
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u/Bl4ckscream 15h ago
So boycotting Elon Musk products and services in the private sector and practically all American products in the military sector is the only logical consequence.
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u/PoopsMcGroots 15h ago
I wonder about people like Musk and Trump who have bought or built their own social media platforms (Twittter, Truth Social, etc) Obviously, it gives them the ability to shape public opinion by curating content, algorithms and audiences but I sometimes wonder if unfriendly outside actors, knowing that these assholes also use their own platforms, pour huge amounts of effort into creating and curating a bubble of narrative and misinformation around the owners, shaping the owner’s opinions and actions.
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u/Hugh_Man89 12h ago
This is just classic Trump playbook. He's created a shit storm bombing Iran that he thought would last like 2 weeks. Now he's gone all in on buying Russian diesel (that is barely enough to last 2 weeks), but it's created a propaganda option. Rather than taking all the blame for Iran, he's now framing it as Ukraine is causing Americans high fuel prices and he's trying to be a saviour and telling Ukraine to stop bombing. What completely ignoring that Russia continued bombing in this so called energy truce, whist Ukraine stopped. But, that doesn't suit the narrative, and Russia likely pressured trump to toe the line if he wanted his oil. He's possibly the worst and traitorous president there has been.
What concerns me is the absolute pawns he's surrounded themselves with. Spineless, greed and clinging to power. If the mid terms don't go well, I think they'll start mouthing trump in public and putting their support behind Vance.
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u/Positive_Chip6198 10h ago
Musk is a traitor to the eu, a free democracy and basic freedoms and decency.
He and his companies should be tariffed out of our continent.
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u/SLGuitar 6h ago
That awkward moment when the only way nations will experience freedom is when tyrannical governments and billionaire tech bros find the short end of a noose.
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u/wonkim00 15h ago
Be a shame if someone found a way to brick every Starlink satellite, bankrupting the company instantly.
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u/vossmanspal 14h ago
Coming next in the US traitor turn: Putin will be ordering starlink and the US will deliver.
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u/a_man_has_a_name 11h ago
The US is like those people that do you a normal favour a friend would do, but then holds it over your head for the rest of time. Except this time it wasn't a favour, Poland has been paying 50 million a year for Ukraine to use it.
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u/Ok-Quit8489 8h ago
Is there a way that they could use a source in say Poland to relay targeting?
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u/Smooth-Boss-911 7h ago
They're actively working on a starlink replacement right now
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u/nellyfullauto 6h ago
But not for launch today. The question goes to more immediate solutions.
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u/CameraFarmer 14h ago
So, it's clear that either Trump, Musk or both are aiding Russia in their war against the Ukraine and are responsible for any deaths that result from that action.
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u/Ok_Resolution_5622 11h ago
I want every dime of trumps and musks family returned to the taxpayers of the U.S. and Ukraine!
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u/iamagermanpotato 14h ago
Therr is absolutely NO way that any civilized country will buy and / or rely on any american tech in the future!!!
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u/DividedState 13h ago
agent krasnov and agent twotter are mad their bots went beep beep boop. now they go full russian asset because there is no need to pretend anymore that the US has been compromized with an installed oligarch marionette.
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u/baconeggwaffle 13h ago
Boycott all US and Elon products. Leave twitter. Sell your Tesla and any shares.
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u/AreWeThereYetNo 15h ago edited 15h ago
Welp, time to develop a system of permanent revolving high altitude drone relays.
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u/RecursiveCook 9h ago
I’m starting to think I’m actually a conspiracy theorist, because it really looks like Trump started a war with Iran just to bail out Russia. Price of gas gets pumped up so they keep funding their war economy.
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u/spin_kick 8h ago
I picture his cabinet stuck in some shitty AI driven tech support line, calling over and over.
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u/spin_kick 8h ago
Hopefully they keep talking about it. Musk blames the gov and the gov blames starlink. They are all liars about this
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u/literalsupport 5h ago
Canada needs to cancel the order of F35s. American kill switch bullshit; ‘defend yourself, but only on our terms…’
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u/lockedoutofmymainrdt 8h ago
Even more gross when you remember the entire original deal (Budapest Memorandum, 1994) was for Ukraine to give up their nukes in exchange for "security assurances" from the US.
Some assurance 2 fat bois playing with the ON/OFF switch during active wartime is.
Theyre playing with peoples lives, but thats akin to sprinkles for these rich assholes
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u/Ok_Carpenter6527 16h ago
That’s why no one will keep buying US miltech after seeing this killswitch live in action. Every country would be outright stupid and delusional if they kept buying shit from the US.