Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said he feels personally betrayed by Donald Trump after it emerged that Ukraine’s military has had its access to Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite squeezed, raising doubts about long-term US support for Kyiv.
The Ukrainian president, on a visit to London, accused Trump of picking the other side after more than four years of war, risking a breakdown in relations already strained by the US agreeing to buy diesel from Moscow.
Ahead of a meeting with prime minister Andy Burnham in Downing St, Zelenskyy appeared in a TV interview where he was asked whether the sudden restriction of Starlink was deliberate and if he felt betrayed by Trump.
“Really, yes … but it’s a little bit more complicated than just my emotions or my feelings,” the Ukrainian president replied, adding: “It’s a pity that we are losing, we are losing a strong partner.”
Overnight, Ukraine’s military reported that, without explanation, the Starlink satellite communications system, produced by Musk’s SpaceX but managed by the US government, was no longer working at speeds greater than ۱۰۰mph.
That effectively rendered most of the drones used by Ukraine to strike behind the frontlines inoperable – and, it later emerged, affected the most effective air defence system to stop Russian jet-powered attack drones bombing Kyiv.
“I am sure they knew what they did, absolutely. Because it was ۱am at night, Starlink was blocked by SpaceX and the United States,” Zelenskyy said in an interview with Piers Morgan. “This decision will bring a lot of human losses … Of course, people will die.”
The sudden outage came as Russia launched ballistic missiles at Ukraine without any advance warning from the US for a second night. For years, the US has provided Ukraine with intelligence when strikes were about to take place.
Trump denied that his administration had cut intelligence sharing on Tuesday, but Zelenskyy said in an interview with US broadcaster NPR, aired on Wednesday, that military advisers had received threats from the US that intelligence sharing could be limited in the future.
The US president has demanded that Ukraine stop striking Russian oil refineries, which he has blamed for the high cost of diesel, although most analysts say that the closure of the strait of Hormuz after the US-Israel attack on Iran has had a far larger impact on global energy prices.
The two leaders fell out in the spring of ۲۰۲۵ during a disastrous visit by Zelenskyy to the Oval Office, where the US president said: “You don’t have the cards” to win the war. The row was followed by a brief pause in intelligence sharing and a desperate scramble by European allies to calm the row.
Burnham met Zelenskyy in Downing Street on Wednesday, hours after he promised MPs that the Ukrainian president “would not leave empty-handed” and that he had tasked officials with drawing up further sanctions and options for speeding up military aid.
As the pair met at No ۱۰, he promised that Britain’s support for Ukraine would remain constant. “You have seen the solidarity and the support you have got from everybody here in Britain. We are behind you and that will not change,” he said.
Zelenskyy had met King Charles in Buckingham Palace earlier on Wednesday.
In brief remarks to reporters, Zelenskyy said he hoped to raise access to Starlink and intelligence sharing in his meeting with the British prime minister.
Burnham pledged that he would accelerate the supply of British lightweight multi-role missiles to Ukraine, which the country uses to counter Russian drone strikes and said they were looking for “all possible avenues” of further support.
The prime minister also said he was prepared to discuss the ceasefire proposed by Trump on attacks on energy infrastructure but acknowledged that Moscow had not abided by it.
“Sadly, what we have seen from Russia is further attacks on critical national infrastructure in Ukraine,” he said.
Earlier Burnham told MPs at PMQs that he wanted to be “careful” about potential criticism of Trump that might risk exacerbating tensions, saying he was “laying the ground” for a reconciliation: “I will listen to President Zelenskyy carefully, but he won’t be going away from Britain today empty-handed.”
The meeting, which lasted just over an hour, began as Burnham greeted Zelenskyy with a hug on Downing Street, before the pair walked to the door of No ۱۰ and posed for photographs, flanked by Irish guards in full ceremonial uniform.
Musk said that the decision to curtail Starlink was not one made by him. The communications system is not directly licensed to clients who are using weapons, and the Ukrainian military was linked to a related network called Starshield, which is operated by the US government.
“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,” Musk said, referring to Trump.
Terminals travelling at more than ۱۰۰mph and using a version of Starlink for the military and other national security agencies suddenly lost connectivity, said Serhiy Beskrestnov, an adviser on military technology to Zelenskyy, in what appeared to be a targeted outage meant to disrupt military operations.
“Our armed forces did not receive a warning about these restrictions and this led to the failure of a number of missions,” said Beskrestnov, who is also a popular military blogger. “It’s clear that this action cannot be a coincidence and is connected to the current political situation.”
Limiting Starlink’s access speeds would have a significant effect on Ukraine’s air defences because it is being used, according to Beskrestnov, in “the most current effective solution”: interceptors that target the jet-powered Shahed drones now deployed in large numbers to bomb Ukraine.
“With their actions, our partners are depriving us of one of the few chances we have to defend ourselves,” he added in a follow-up post. Shahed interception rates had already dropped from more than ۹۰% to about ۶۰% when Russia upgraded its engines to jet power in the early summer.
It also complicates Ukraine’s use of medium-range, mid-strike drones for hitting targets in its territories occupied by Russia. But, ironically, it would have no impact on Ukraine’s deep strike bombing of oil refineries because Kyiv is banned from using Starlink to hit targets inside of Russia.
Russia carried out a massive strike against Ukrainian energy infrastructure late on Tuesday evening, Zelenskyy said, launching ۳۹ ballistic missiles and ۱۲۰ attack drones against Kyiv and Kharkiv. The strikes hit five big power plants, key substations and other infrastructure that sustains major cities including Kyiv.
At least ۶۰۰,۰۰۰ people were now without power, he said, adding that outages could become more widespread.
Trump last week announced an “energy ceasefire” between Russia and Ukraine that has not been confirmed. Zelenskyy said he had not heard of the deal until Trump announced it on his Truth Social site, and the Kremlin on Wednesday claimed it was abiding by the ceasefire because Trump had not specified which energy infrastructure it included.
Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesperson, told reporters: “The energy truce proposed by Trump was not specified in detail, so it cannot be claimed that Russia is failing to observe it.”
