Pentagon watchdog declines bipartisan request to investigate Starshield slowdowns in Ukraine
By Jennifer Hansler, CNN
(CNN) — The Defense Department’s watchdog has declined a bipartisan request to open an investigation into the slowdown of the SpaceX’s military-grade Starlink system in Ukraine, according to a letter obtained by CNN.
Earlier this month, a group of nine bipartisan senators, led by Republican Sen. Thom Tillis and Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, wrote to the Pentagon inspector general asking for “an immediate investigation” into the disruptions to the Starshield and commercial-grade Starlink systems in Ukraine. Kyiv was blindsided in recent weeks with the speed restrictions, which officials said came without warning and severely hampered Ukraine’s defenses.
Pentagon Inspector General Platte Moring, in a letter dated Tuesday, said that the senators’ questions about the slowdowns and their impacts should be directed to the US Air Force and Space Force.
“They are better suited to address the matters raised in your letter and to coordinate any Department responses to your questions,” Moring wrote in his letter, which was first reported by the Associated Press.
Shaheen said in a statement Wednesday that “it is concerning that the inspector general has apparently decided not to investigate satellite communication disruptions that Ukraine relies on to protect its civilians.”
“The Trump Administration and SpaceX have provided conflicting accounts of what led to those disruptions, which weakened Ukraine’s defenses and put American personnel in Ukraine at risk unnecessarily,” the New Hampshire Democrat said. “There must be an independent accounting and review to determine responsibility and prevent this from happening in the future. I urge the Inspector General to conduct a full investigation.”
Mollie Halpern, the spokesperson for the Pentagon’s inspector general office, said that the office “carefully considered the congressional request and determined that the matters raised were best addressed by the Department.”
“Should new information come to light, we may reconsider,” she said.
The issues with Starshield were discovered after the administration threatened to withhold intelligence to Kyiv over its strikes on Russian refineries and after President Donald Trump made a deal to buy Russian diesel and ease sanctions on Moscow.
It was not until this Saturday that the speeds were fully restored, and questions remain about who was behind the slowdowns.
Trump said that he was not responsible, and some within the US sought to cast blame Elon Musk, the Trump ally and billionaire head of SpaceX. However, there remain questions of whether he could singlehandedly stall the military system without US government knowledge or approval.
On Sunday, Musk appeared to confirm that SpaceX had throttled Starlink speeds but maintained that the military-grade Starshield is a separate system.
In a post on X, Musk accused the Ukrainian military of violating Starlink’s terms of service by using it “for offensive drone strikes to kill people.”
“That loophole was closed last week,” he said.
“Starshield, a different system, is controlled by the US government,” Musk said. “What they decide to do is up to them.”
An adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Serhiy Sternenko, disputed Musk’s accusation that Ukraine is using the commercial service to kill people, saying speed restrictions and the service’s unavailability over Russian territory made Ukraine “physically unable to use commercial Starlink” for medium- and long-range strikes into Russia.
Sternenko, a former Ukrainian Ministry of Defense adviser, also denied Musk’s claims. “As someone who was involved in the process at the Ministry of Defense, I can say with certainty that this is not true,” he said.
The-CNN-Wire
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