Bessent warns Zelenskyy to be careful as Ukraine says Starlink is still throttled and Republicans demand a probe

A fight over the satellite links that keep Ukraine's drones in the air spilled onto the Sunday talk shows. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to watch his words after Zelenskyy blamed Washington for a sudden slowdown. At the same time Republicans in Congress said they want to know who flipped the switch.

What Zelenskyy said

In a Sunday morning television interview Zelenskyy said his generals and his government believe the slowdown began as a signal from the American government. He said he could not say which office or official sent it. "Technically SpaceX did it," he said of the company behind the service. He added that the problem is not fixed. Ukrainian drones linked to the system still cut out once they pass roughly 161 kilometers an hour, or about 100 miles an hour.

Zelenskyy also said Ukraine went three days without U.S. warnings of incoming Russian ballistic missiles before that flow of intelligence was switched back on. He thanked Washington for restoring it. Asked whether he still trusts the president, he said Ukraine wants to and hopes the White House will change course.

Bessent fires back

Bessent appeared on the same program in a separate interview. He said the president and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have flatly denied that anyone in the administration ordered the slowdown. He called Zelenskyy's charge "very reckless" and said the Ukrainian leader "should be very careful" about saying things that are not true. When pressed on what did cause the outage, Bessent said he did not know.

He was also asked twice whether the United States still counts Ukraine as an ally. Bessent pointed to the help Washington gives Kyiv and said that is how you treat an ally. He then said he is not the secretary of state or the president and would not give a yes or no.

Why the link matters

Starlink is the satellite internet network run by Elon Musk's SpaceX. Starshield is its hardened military cousin. The Pentagon has paid billions of dollars since 2024 to share it with Ukraine. Kyiv leans on it to fly drones that knock down Russian attack drones, to hit targets behind the front and to drop food and water to soldiers in the trenches.

Musk wrote on X last week that Starshield belongs to the U.S. government and that the military and the president decide any limits on speed or use. A news report last week said the order came from inside the White House. The president has said it was not him and that he does not think Musk was behind it either. On Saturday Rubio said no one at the White House ordered the change. He said it "sort of happened" and that service is back to normal. Rubio added that Ukraine's request to use the system for strikes deep inside Russia is still being discussed.

Republicans want answers

On another Sunday show Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio, a Republican, called for a congressional investigation and said lives are on the line. He said service has come back in some places but not in others. Sen. Kevin Cramer, a North Dakota Republican, also backed a probe. Cramer said it could turn out to be a technical glitch but that the bigger priority is getting the system back to full strength.

Their calls follow a letter from nine senators of both parties led by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire. Republicans Thom Tillis, Susan Collins, John Cornyn and Lisa Murkowski signed on. The letter asks the Pentagon's inspector general to find out whether the Defense Department or its contractors played a part in the disruption.

A widening rift

The clash comes as ties between Washington and Kyiv grow more strained. On Friday the president used a waiver to put most of a new Russia sanctions law on hold. He has also struck a deal to bring more Russian diesel onto world markets and has blamed Ukraine's strikes on Russian refineries for higher fuel costs at home. Gas averaged close to $4.30 a gallon on Sunday while diesel sat near $6.32.

Ukraine has kept up the pressure on Russia anyway. Kyiv sent more than 1,000 drones toward Russia overnight into Sunday and set an oil terminal and a fuel depot ablaze in St. Petersburg. Zelenskyy said Russia fired more than 4,000 drones, bombs and missiles at Ukraine over the past week. Russian strikes on Saturday night hit energy substations and left tens of thousands of people without power as winter closes in.