Secretary of State Marco Rubio has lashed out at Volodymyr Zelensky amid claims that the U.S. has limited Ukraine’s access to SpaceX’s Starshield satellite system.
In an interview Saturday night, Rubio, 55, said of Starshield: “It’s not at this moment available to Ukraine, and that’s under conversation, I mean that’s under discussion right now about how they would want to use it.”
“Did the U.S. have anything to do with it not working in Ukraine at the moment? Zelensky said it was deliberate,” the interviewer asked.
Rubio jumped to attack the president of Ukraine. “No. I mean, I don’t know what Zelensky said. I’m not sure Zelensky knows what he’s talking about, but it wasn’t deliberate,” he said.
Turning to Starlink, Rubio acknowledged that the service had slowed in Ukraine but rejected suggestions that the U.S. was responsible. “It sort of happened. But my understanding is it’s been restored, it’s back to where it was before, so...”
When the interviewer returned to Starshield—SpaceX’s military satellite service—Rubio insisted that Ukraine did not have access to it despite evidence to the contrary.
“Starshield is a totally different product. Starshield has a contract with the U.S. military and it has nothing to do with Ukraine,” he raged.
“I know Ukraine wants access to Starshield. They do not have access to Starshield now. They’ve asked for access to it in order to conduct deep strikes inside of Russia. They do not have access to it at this moment.”
Asked again about possible U.S. involvement amid Trump’s growing closeness with Russia, Rubio said: “I don’t know what their theory is, but nothing to do with the White House. I saw a report on that the other day, it’s just categorically false.
Rubio’s account conflicts with what U.S. officials told Reuters on Thursday: that the Defense Department had received an order to slow Ukraine’s access to Starshield.
SpaceX founder Elon Musk also suggested Wednesday that any sudden restrictions on Starshield would require U.S. government involvement.
“Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the US government. Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS,” he wrote on X.
