STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he's going back to attacking Russian oil refineries, which is something President Trump asked him not to do. Zelenskyy told the Financial Times today that he held off for a few days, but not anymore.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
It's the latest sign of a division between Trump and Ukraine. Another sign is in the skies over Ukraine. The satellite communications system the U.S. gives Ukraine suddenly, but briefly, faced crippling restrictions. In a few minutes, we'll ask Representative Mike Quigley, co-chair of the Congressional Ukraine Caucus, for his take on what's going on there, but we're going to start with the details.
INSKEEP: NPR's Greg Myre is following this. Greg, good morning.
GREG MYRE, BYLINE: Hi, Steve.
INSKEEP: OK. Was the United States trying to limit Ukraine's ability to fight?
MYRE: Steve, no one is saying this explicitly, but given the evidence we have, that certainly seems to be the case, and we do have a new development this morning. Ukraine's defense ministry is saying that this satellite network is back and working as normal. And by way of explanation, many people know the satellite communication system Starlink. This is part of Elon Musk's empire. But there's also a military version called Starshield that he built for the U.S. government and military. The Pentagon shares this with Ukraine, which uses it to guide its drones, but yesterday Ukraine discovered quite abruptly that the Starshield system had suddenly been greatly restricted.
INSKEEP: In what way?
MYRE: Ukraine said that when its drones exceed 100 miles per hour, which is absolutely routine...
INSKEEP: Sure.
MYRE: ...The communication was automatically cut between the drone and the drone operator, and this effectively made the aircraft useless. Ukraine depends on this Starshield system for both its offensive drones that attack Russia and defensive drones to protect against Russian airstrikes. And so Ukraine said it was trying to figure that out, but it seems it may have now been resolved.
INSKEEP: OK. So you said nobody's explaining this explicitly, but are SpaceX or the Trump administration saying anything?
MYRE: Yeah. Elon Musk went on X and said Starshield is, quote, "controlled by the U.S. government. Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the U.S. military and ultimately," he said, the president. Now, the White House and the Pentagon have not commented directly on this. But again, according to Musk, if there were something going on, that would be because the White House and/or the Pentagon had done something.
INSKEEP: OK. So is there some connection between these two events, the sudden Starshield outage and the disagreement between Trump and Ukraine over whether Ukraine should be attacking Russian oil facilities?
MYRE: Well, Steve, NPR's Ukraine correspondent Joanna Kakissis interviewed President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday in Kyiv. Here's what he said about the importance of this satellite network that Ukraine is using.
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PRESIDENT VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY: We need Starlink. We asked administration, government and SpaceX on different channels. We asked them to share with us Starlink only for military goals.
MYRE: So the big issue has been this cooperation and intelligence sharing. Trump said back on Tuesday that intelligence sharing hadn't been cut, but what we saw yesterday did look like some sort of intentional action against Ukraine.
INSKEEP: What options does Ukraine have if that kind of disruption continued?
MYRE: I spoke with Mark Montgomery during this whole episode. He's a retired U.S. Navy rear admiral. He travels to Ukraine often to train and advise the military there. Now, he said Ukraine shouldn't go against Trump and attack Russian oil facilities, but he thinks there are still a number of things Ukraine could do. He suggested this approach.
MARK MONTGOMERY: I'd turn to my military planners and say, good news, boys. I'm going to give you full operational planning to strike nonenergy targets in Russia. Have a field day. And you know what Vladimir Putin is going to find out? He's vulnerable everywhere, all the time, all at once.
MYRE: Still, it's a difficult moment for Ukraine, which is taking hits on several fronts. Russia has stepped up attacks with ballistic missiles and jet-powered drones as Ukraine struggles with the lack of air defenses to counter these weapons, and Russia says openly that this is part of a broader campaign to take out Ukraine's electricity grid this winter, which looks to be the toughest one yet facing Ukraine.
INSKEEP: NPR's Greg Myre. Thanks.
MYRE: Sure thing, Steve. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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