Ukraine faces grim question of whether it can take on Russia without US backing

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What is Starshield? SpaceX's military satellite service

What is Starshield? SpaceX's military satellite service

The disruptions this week in U.S. support for Ukraine have forced Kyiv to face a grim question: Can it stay in the fight against Russia without any of President Trump’s already diminished support?

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has escalated a diplomatic assault, earlier this week accusing the Trump administration of throttling its access to Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite services and failing to offer standard intelligence on incoming Russian strikes. So far, U.S. weapons seem to still be flowing to Europe despite Trump’s turns in the war.

Uncertainty continues to swirl around who chose to limit SpaceX’s Starshield function, which has since been restored, but Reuters reported Thursday that the order to limit the satellite system came from inside the White House. Leaders at the Defense Department reportedly were told that the service needed to be slowed. 

Then on Friday, Trump said that neither he nor Musk caused the Starlink outage, telling reporters: “I didn’t do that. No, we didn’t do that at all.”

The episode highlights a growing rift between the U.S. and Ukraine, a dispute that puts Kyiv in danger and all but makes sure its war with Russia will stretch on for the foreseeable future, according to Branislav Slantchev, a political science professor at the University of California, San Diego.

“This hurts Ukraine in more ways than just limiting its ability to operate on the........

© The Hill