Ukrainian drone units began testing speed limits on Thursday night, shortly after Trump told reporters that Musk had restored Starlink. While some tests recorded speeds of up to 200 km/h over the Black Sea and noted an improvement, the drones quickly lost signal once they flew above the 160 km/h speed limit. “So, the key point is: we accelerate above 180 km/h, we fly for a couple of minutes, the connection drops. It drops to 140-150 km/h and then it is restored, but the situation is better,” a drone pilot from Ukraine’s main drone unit, known as Magyar’s Birds, told POLITICO. “Then it works better, but with constant interruptions in the connection,” said the pilot, whose call sign is León. The speed limit on Starshield, Starlink’s service designed for military purposes, paralyzed key operations and partially disabled crucial drone interceptors against Russian Shaheds attack drones. Musk said the US government controlled Starshield, while US Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that the administration could not direct SpaceX or Musk regarding restrictions or slowdowns of Starlink services in Ukraine since it is a private company. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy argued that the Starlink restriction was a planned operation to specifically restrict Starshield’s operational speed over Ukraine. The Ukrainian government said it had not been told for days why that had happened. However, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that Trump had called Musk and asked him to lift the restrictions. “I don’t want to say it. It’s a very interesting situation. My relationship with Elon is very good. I don’t want to comment on that, whether I called or someone else called… The bottom line: he returned it,” Trump told reporters Thursday night.
