Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday that the slowdown of his military’s satellite internet last week was a message from Washington. “Of course the message came from government,” he told NBC’s Meet the Press. The instruction was to “limit this speed, and technically SpaceX did it.” Minutes later on the same show, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent shot back: “It is very reckless for President Zelenskyy to make such a charge,” according to the transcript.
It’s the sharpest public split yet between Kyiv and the Trump administration, and it came out on the same Sunday show.
What did Zelenskyy say about Starlink?
That the cap is still on. Ukraine’s military drones connect through Starshield, the government version of Musk’s Starlink, and on Oct. 14 their speed was limited without warning. “The speed is maximum 161 kilometers,” about 100 mph, Zelenskyy said. That’s too slow for the interceptor drones Ukraine uses against Russian attack drones. Reuters has reported the order came from inside the White House, and Musk has said the U.S. military and “ultimately POTUS” decide those limits. Trump has said, “I didn’t do that.”
Zelenskyy also said U.S. intelligence sharing was cut off for a while. “It was blocked for some period of time. And then it was deblocked by American side,” he said. Ukraine went three days without U.S. warnings of Russian ballistic missile launches.
What did Bessent say back?
He denied the premise and defended the sanctions waiver. “No sanctions were lifted on Friday,” Bessent said. “There is a 60-day period so we can examine what’s going on. The only thing that has been lifted is the diesel embargo.” He said “no one has been tougher on Russian sanctions than President Trump” and turned the blame on Europe: “They continue to gorge on Russian energy.” He said he didn’t know about the intelligence pause. Asked whether Ukraine is a U.S. ally, he didn’t give a direct answer.
Zelenskyy called the diesel deal “very dangerous” and was blunt about the stakes. If the U.S. and Russia end up on the same side, “of course we will not prevail and we will not be able to stand,” he said. On Trump, he tried to keep the door open: “We want to trust him, and I hope that he will change his decisions.” But he added, “I can’t applause any decisions or any words of one or another leader if they go against Ukraine.”
Republican Sen. James Lankford, also on the show, defended the waiver as within the president’s power: “The president has the ability under the statute to be able to look at national interests.”
The BeezLoop Take
Bessent calling Zelenskyy reckless doesn’t answer the question. Reuters says the order came from inside the White House. Musk says the president decides. Trump says he didn’t do it. Somebody in the U.S. government told SpaceX to slow down an ally’s drones in the middle of a missile campaign, and days later nobody will say who.
“No sanctions were lifted” is also a stretch. A law Congress passed was waived two days before it took effect, and the diesel embargo is gone. Calling that a 60-day review is spin. Zelenskyy has a stake in the story, but on the facts that are public, his account holds up better than Washington’s.
The open question: who in the administration ordered the Starshield speed cap, and will Congress make them say so under oath?
Also on BeezLoop: what’s documented about Trump, Musk and Russia, and how Trump waived the Russia sanctions he signed.
Sources: Meet the Press transcript, NBC News · NBC News (video) · NBC News, Bessent interview (video)
