Starshield is SpaceX’s more secure satellite service for governments, and The Wall Street Journal said it has two variants. One is a custom-built satellite network SpaceX launched for the Pentagon. The other is a lower-tier, military-grade service that connects to commercial Starlink satellites.

Starlink is SpaceX’s global network of more than 11,000 low-Earth-orbit satellites that beam broadband service to terminals around the world.

Starlink’s customers include rural homeowners, recreational boaters, airlines and hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians. Many civilians use the relatively cheap satellite service to stay online where the country’s broadband infrastructure is damaged.

Ukraine is using the more basic Starshield service, which uses Starlink equipment. The Journal said the service offers encryption features and allows the equipment to travel at faster speeds than those on a commercial Starlink account.

Ukraine’s weapons — attack drones, interceptors and uncrewed boats — need to travel at high speeds to intercept Russian Shahed-type drones, bomb the Russian army’s logistics and stall Russia’s invasion force. Many of those drone missions are now failing because of the speed limit imposed by SpaceX, according to the Ukrainian military.

The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that SpaceX CEO Elon Musk ordered the slowdown and discussed the decision in a call with President Trump. The Journal said the slowdown prompted competing claims about responsibility, much of it focused on the difference between the better-known Starlink service for consumers and Starshield for government users.

The Ukrainian military says the disruption is having a significant impact on Kyiv’s defenses against Russia’s invasion. The military also uses Starlink to communicate on the battlefield and to control drones.

The U.S. government owns the physical Starshield satellite constellation that SpaceX operates, but the Journal said that is not the infrastructure Ukrainian forces are using. Troops there use a kind of “Starshield as a service” — infrastructure owned and controlled by SpaceX.

Some of the Starshield links used in Ukraine were bought with U.S. funds, including through a $138 million contract issued in 2024. The funding applies to links in the SpaceX-owned and controlled “Starshield as a service” infrastructure, while the U.S. government owns the separate physical constellation that SpaceX operates.