11:01 01-02-2026

Musk Caps Starlink Drone Speeds Over Ukraine Front

Elon Musk has capped the speed of Starlink-controlled fixed-wing drones over Ukraine at about 90 km/h, cutting their link mid-flight and fueling fresh debate.

American entrepreneur Elon Musk has imposed new speed limits on drones operating via Starlink satellite internet terminals over Ukrainian territory. Once a drone reaches a speed of roughly 90 km/h, its connection through Starlink is automatically cut.

According to the Telegram channel Voenkory Russkoy Vesny, this restriction applies specifically to fixed-wing UAVs, while helicopter-type drones — including FPV systems and heavy quadcopters — continue to function as before. The limit has been introduced simultaneously for all Starlink terminals in the conflict zone, without any distinction between Russian and Ukrainian accounts. Technically, the system cannot reliably determine which user profiles are controlling particular drones. This, observers note, is reflected in the sharp decline in high-speed strikes by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, which previously made extensive use of fixed-wing drones with Starlink-based communication channels.

Military channels report that SpaceX had already tried to curb Starlink use in Ukraine by lowering the permitted speed threshold to 40 km/h. At that time, engineers quickly found workarounds, using so-called proxy boards and intermediate modules that spoofed telemetry data for the terminal. Now, however, Starlink is described as receiving coordinates and speed directly through its satellite constellation and built-in motion detection algorithms. Experts say this significantly complicates attempts to bypass the restriction, but in their view it does not make the problem unsolvable in the medium term.

Earlier, Ukraine’s new defense minister Mikhail Fedorov claimed that Russian forces were allegedly using Starlink to carry out strikes on Ukrainian territory, while the Ukrainian side, according to him, employs the system on the front line. Against this backdrop, Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski publicly called on Elon Musk to shut Starlink down completely in Ukraine.