Secretary of State Marco Rubio tried to clear up why Ukraine’s satellite internet has been slowing down. Critics say he made things murkier, and one prominent conservative predicted Congress would be asking about it.
Rubio talked to reporters Saturday at Joint Base Andrews before leaving for Central Asia. One asked about Starshield, the military version of SpaceX’s Starlink. Elon Musk had said this week that limits on the system are up to the president.
“Starshield is a defense product, a military product,” Rubio said. “It’s not at this moment available to Ukraine, and that’s under conversation.”
Asked about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s claim that the slowdown was deliberate, Rubio waved it off.
“I’m not sure Zelenskyy knows what he’s talking about, but it wasn’t deliberate,” he said. “We have nothing to do with that. I don’t – the United States, nobody ordered that Starlink speed to be slowed down. It sort of happened, but my understanding is it’s been restored.”
He added that Ukraine wants Starshield “in order to conduct deep strikes inside of Russia” but doesn’t have access to it.
Christopher Miller, chief Ukraine correspondent for the Financial Times, said that’s wrong.
“In fact, Ukraine has had access to and contracts for Starshield since 2024,” Miller wrote. “So it seems the Ukrainian president is not the one who doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
Miller noted that a week after the slowdown, Ukraine still has no explanation of who ordered the speed limits.
“The White House and SpaceX each claim it’s the other who’s responsible,” he wrote. “Rubio says nobody in the US is responsible.”
Barak Ravid, a politics and foreign policy reporter for Axios, pointed out that Rubio’s account doesn’t match what Kyiv has said.
“This is very strange. Ukrainian officials claim they had access to starshield through the Pentagon until a few days ago when it was restricted,” Ravid wrote. “Maybe there is some misunderstanding.”
Even some critics on the right questioned Rubio’s version. David Pyne, a conservative national security commentator who posts as “America First Con,” wrote: “Rubio is lying. Biden gave Ukraine access to Starshield years ago when he authorized deep strikes into Russia. Trump has only disabled it intermittently since October 14th.”
Jonah Goldberg, the conservative editor-in-chief of The Dispatch, said the moment won’t go away.
“This interview is weird,” Goldberg wrote. “What he says here will be revisited by journalists, historians, and Congressional committees.”
Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) went after Rubio’s tone.
“Innocent civilians are dying in Ukraine because of Trump/Musk and Rubio treats it like it’s a special at Applebee’s that has run out,” he wrote.
Terry Moran, an independent journalist and former ABC News correspondent, said Rubio has given up the hawkish views he once held.
“Marco Rubio was once a serious man,” Moran wrote. “Now he cannot even whisper a syllable of the principles he once proudly and effectively proclaimed. It profits a man nothing to sell his soul for the whole world. But for Donald Trump?”
German military analyst Julian Röpcke, a former journalist for the tabloid Bild, wrote in German that “the former Russia critic Rubio” had shown how Trump’s “authoritarian aura turns formerly principled politicians into spineless Putin supporters.”
An American YouTuber based in Ukraine who posts as Jay in Kyiv put it more bluntly: “Rubio tells a series of complete lies.”
The remarks come shortly after President Donald Trump put on hold the sweeping Russia sanctions law named for the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, and a week after he struck a deal to import Russian diesel.
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