Secretary of State Marco Rubio is firing back at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky over claims that the United States deliberately slowed a satellite network that Ukraine relies on in the war. Speaking to reporters on Saturday before leaving for Uzbekistan, Rubio said he does not know what Zelensky said and is not sure Zelensky knows what he is talking about. He insisted the slowdown "wasn't deliberate," that nobody at the White House ordered the speed reduced, and that his understanding is service is back up and running. Rubio also said Ukraine has never had access to Starshield, the Pentagon's military-grade version of Elon Musk's Starlink, describing it as a U.S. military contract. President Trump made a similar denial on Friday, saying "it wasn't me" and that he does not think it was Musk.

Zelensky sees it very differently. He says Starlink was not turned off but its speed was restricted, cutting the connection when a terminal moves faster than about 160 kilometers per hour, which forced drones to fly slower and hindered Ukraine's ability to intercept jet-powered Russian Shahed drones. Reuters has reported that the order came from the White House, the Telegraph has reported that Musk approached Trump about slowing the service, and Ukrainian officials remain highly skeptical of the denials. Musk has said any restriction on Starlink or Starshield would have come from the president or White House, and Starshield is owned and controlled by the U.S. government, which leaves the question of who made the call unanswered. With U.S.-Ukraine relations already strained, the dispute raises a pressing question: whether service has truly been restored, and who, if anyone, will be held accountable if it was throttled on purpose.