UKRAINE, Oct. 15 – Tom Tillis, U.S. Republican Senator, has called on the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General to investigate a reported outage with Starshield systems, which, as he said “put Ukrainian civilians and U.S. diplomatic and security personnel at unnecessary risk”.

According to Tillis, the latest reports suggest the problem may have involved Starshield, a satellite system used by the U.S. Department of Defense, rather than Starlink or SpaceX directly. 

Earlier, the senator had asked Elon Musk, CEO of the SpaceX company, on X platform  whether SpaceX was responsible for overnight disruptions to Starlink terminals in Ukraine. According to Musk, the U.S. government itself controls Starshield and sets its restrictions.

Tillis said he would seek an investigation by the Pentagon’s Inspector General rather than rely on Pete Hegseth, Defense Secretary, to provide transparency about the incident.

“At best, this was an unacceptable error or lapse, and at worst a conscious decision to clear the field for a Russian attack,” he said.

Overnight on Oct. 14, Ukrainian military noticed an unexpected restriction put on Starlink’s connection speed that appeared if a drone the terminal is attached to moved faster than 100 mph. That affected logistics, deep-strike drone units’ operations, and air defence across the frontline.

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  • Restrictions to Starlink military version hamper Ukraine’s army, again — here’s what soldiers say

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