US negotiators pressing Kyiv for access to Ukraine’s critical minerals have raised the possibility of cutting the country’s access to Elon Musk’s vital Starlink satellite Internet system, three sources familiar with the matter said.
Ukraine’s continued access to Space Exploration Technologies-owned Starlink was brought up in discussions between US and Ukrainian officials after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy turned down an initial proposal from US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, the sources said.
Starlink provides crucial Internet connectivity to war-torn Ukraine and its military.
Photo: Bloomberg
The issue was raised again on Thursday during meetings between US special envoy to Ukraine Keith Kellogg and Zelenskiy, said one of the sources, who was briefed on the talks.
During the meeting, Ukraine was told it faced imminent shutoff of the service if it did not reach a deal on critical minerals, said the source, who requested anonymity to discuss closed negotiations.
“Ukraine runs on Starlink. They consider it their North Star,” the source said. “Losing Starlink ... would be a massive blow.”
Zelenskiy has rejected demands from US President Donald Trump’s administration for US$500 billion in mineral wealth from Ukraine to repay Washington for wartime aid, saying the US has offered no specific security guarantees.
The Ukrainian president said the US and Ukrainian teams were working on an agreement and Trump said he expected a deal would be signed soon.
Musk rushed thousands of Starlink terminals to Ukraine to replace communications services destroyed by Russia after its February 2022 invasion. Hailed as a hero in Ukraine, Musk later curtailed access at least once before in the fall of 2022 as he became more critical of Kyiv’s handling of the war.
US lawmakers are divided over Trump’s efforts to find a quick end to the Ukraine war and some have raised questions about Musk’s rapid-fire efforts to cull thousands of federal workers and shut down Federal agencies.
Melinda Haring, a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council, said Starlink was essential for Ukraine’s operation of drones, a key pillar of its military strategy.
“Losing Starlink would be a game changer,” Haring said, adding that Ukraine was now at 1:1 parity with Russia in terms of drone usage and artillery shells. Ukraine has a wide range of different drone capabilities, ranging from sea drones and surveillance drones to long-range unmanned aerial vehicles.
Also on Friday, the US proposed a UN resolution on the Ukraine conflict that omitted any mention of Kyiv’s territory occupied by Russia, diplomatic sources said.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio urged UN members to approve the “simple, historic” resolution.
The proposal came amid an intensifying feud between Trump and Zelenskiy, which has seen Trump claim it was “not important” for his Ukrainian counterpart to be involved in peace talks.
It also appeared to rival a separate draft resolution produced by Kyiv and its European allies, countries that Trump has also sought to sideline from talks on the future of the three-year-old war.
The Ukrainian-European text stresses the need to redouble diplomatic efforts to end the war this year, noting several initiatives to that end, while also blaming Russia for the invasion and committing to Kyiv’s “territorial integrity.”
The text also repeats the UN General Assembly’s previous demands for an immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine. Those votes had wide support, with about 140 of the 193 member states voting in favor.
Washington’s text calls for a “swift end to the conflict” without mentioning Kyiv’s territorial integrity, and was welcomed by Russian Ambassador to the UN Vassily Nebenzia as “a good move.”
“A stripped-down text of this type that does not condemn Russian aggression or explicitly reference Ukraine’s territorial integrity looks like a betrayal of Kyiv and a jab at the EU, but also a show of disdain for core principles of international law,” International Crisis Group UN and multilateral diplomacy director Richard Gowan said. “I think even a lot of states that favor an early end to the war will worry that the US is ignoring core elements of the UN Charter.”
Additional reporting by AFP
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
CONFIDENT ON DEAL: ‘Ukraine wants a seat at the table, but wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have a say? It’s been a long time since an election, the US president said US President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and added that he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks. Trump increased pressure on Zelenskiy to hold elections and chided him for complaining about being frozen out of talks in Saudi Arabia. The US president also suggested that he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the month as Washington overhauls its stance toward Russia. “I’m very disappointed, I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when asked about the Ukrainian
RSS