“I believe, in any case, depending on a single solution is very risky,” Mike Orliuk, spokesman for Ukrainian drone maker Wild Hornets, told us — a blunt summation from a company now weighing whether to design future weapons that rely on SpaceX’s Starlink/Starshield at all.
Starlink/Starshield speed caps and intermittent cuts
Ukrainian officials and frontline units report that Starlink terminals in some areas cease functioning when mounted on vehicles travelling between about 130–161 kilometers per hour. That limitation affects a range of systems, notably the remote control of interceptor drones used against Russian long-range one-way attack drones such as the Shahed-136, and mid-range strikes on logistics lines and targets at sea.
Who ordered limits on speed and usage is disputed. Reuters reported that “the order to limit a satellite system used by Ukraine for battlefield communications and drone operations came from inside the White House,” citing two U.S. officials and a Western official briefed on the matter. U.S. officials quoted to us said, “No such request was ever made by the president.” A senior Pentagon official said, “There has been no change to Department of War policy regarding intelligence sharing or any capabilities we are enabling Europeans to provide to Ukraine.”
When asked directly, the Pentagon initially declined further comment. On Oct. 20, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the Pentagon did not order any changes and said Ukraine violated Starlink’s terms of service. SpaceX did not immediately respond to requests for comment, while the company’s founder, Elon Musk, has said that “any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately” Trump.
Wild Hornets: operational reliance now, design questions for the future
Wild Hornets — a major Ukrainian combat drone maker and producer of the STING interceptor — says its current systems have been little affected because “our own communications system provides the basic connection to our interceptors,” Orliuk said. The company’s architecture uses a terminal that “simply provides a connection between the command center and the ground station to which the interceptor is connected—it’s somewhat similar to cell towers.”
Still, Orliuk acknowledged the limits have prompted rethinking. Some future interceptor concepts, especially those that would carry a satellite terminal on board and fly at high speed or be launched from aerial platforms, would be “impossible” under Starlink’s current constraints. Wild Hornets said it will continue testing alternatives and “we’re keeping an eye on the situation,” while declining to detail what those alternatives might be.
Wild Hornets also continues to publicize the operational record of its STING interceptor. A company post cited in this report claims STING “has destroyed over 15,000 Shaheds and Gerberas in one year” and topped interceptor rankings for 12 consecutive months, with about 1,600 Shaheds downed in September.
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End the scrambleFrontline experience: the Georgian Legion’s account
Mamuka Mamulashvili, commander of the Georgian Legion operating in Kramatorsk, described wider problems than a simple speed cap. “We use Starlink a lot because, in this war, reliable communication is essential,” he said, while noting alternatives — mobile internet, fiber-optic, radio and other satellite systems such as OneWeb — “none of them can fully replace Starlink in Ukraine right now.”
Mamulashvili added that “the problems were not limited to the speed restriction of approximately 160 km/h.” He reported Starlink connectivity “was also intermittent, repeatedly switching on and off,” disrupting multiple drone systems and causing operators to struggle to maintain reliable control. “When you lose the connection between the operator and the drone, you can lose control of the situation in seconds,” he said, adding that units have adapted but the interruptions affected mission execution.
Mitigation concepts: relays, balloons and alternative satellites
The reporting outlines several technical approaches being considered as partial workarounds. Operators can use drones as line-of-sight relays daisy-chained to span dozens or even hundreds of miles to a ground entry point. Another discussed concept is swarms of balloons hosting Starlink terminals or creating an active network overhead to relay connections to drones below. The article notes, however, that “nothing can fully replace Starlink/Starshield and its seamless beyond line-of-sight communications architecture at this time.”
Industry interest is reportedly growing in other constellations, with Orliuk pointing to the European Eutelsat system as an example of alternatives under consideration — though he cautioned that “creating something like Starlink won’t be easy.”
What this means for Ukrainian weapons makers, frontline units, and U.S. policy actors
- Ukrainian weapons makers: Companies such as Wild Hornets are keeping current operations tied to their own comms layers while reconsidering designs that assume continuous Starlink capacity — especially airborne or high-speed platforms that would carry terminals on board.
- Frontline units: Units like the Georgian Legion are balancing dependence on Starlink for reliable beyond-line-of-sight control with practical fallbacks (mobile internet, fiber, radio, alternative satellites) and adapting tactics when connectivity is intermittent.
- U.S. policy actors and SpaceX: Conflicting public statements — Reuters’ report of an internal White House order, Pentagon denials of policy change, Defense Secretary Hegseth’s statement about terms-of-service violations, Elon Musk’s claim that limits are decided by the U.S. military and “ultimately” Trump, and Marco Rubio’s assertion that “there’s nothing being deliberately denied to Ukraine” — leave the allocation of authority and operational control over Starlink-enabled capabilities contested in public.
President Zelensky raised the issue directly during a call with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Oct. 20, urging that “the situation with Starlink/Starshield… needs to be restored.” For now, manufacturers will test alternatives, frontline units will continue to adapt in the field, and policymakers will face pressure to clarify who controls battlefield access to a private satellite network that has become strategically consequential.
