Pentagon inspector general will not investigate October Starlink restrictions for Ukraine, AP reports

What the inspector general decided

The Office of the Inspector General of the US Department of Defense has turned down a bipartisan request from senators to investigate October disruptions to Starlink and its military version Starshield in Ukraine. The Associated Press reported this after obtaining the watchdog’s reply.

In a letter dated 27 October the inspector general told a group of nine senators, four Republicans and five Democrats, that their questions would be better addressed to the US Air Force. A congressional aide speaking to AP on condition of anonymity saw this as a refusal to investigate SpaceX chief Elon Musk and Starlink, even though the inspector general had every opportunity to do so.

Office spokesperson Molly Halpern said the watchdog had carefully reviewed the congressional request and concluded that the issues raised were best handled by the Department of Defense itself. She added that the decision could be revisited if new information emerged. The Pentagon referred AP’s request to the inspector general’s office, and the Air Force did not immediately respond.

What the senators asked

The senators asked whether officials at the Pentagon or other US agencies “directed, authorised, approved or had advance knowledge” of changes to intelligence sharing, warning capabilities or Starlink and Starshield services affecting Ukraine.

Senator Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told AP it was concerning that the inspector general had apparently decided not to investigate disruptions to the satellite link Ukraine relies on to protect civilians. Shaheen said the Trump administration and SpaceX had given conflicting accounts of what caused the outages, so an independent review is needed to establish accountability.

How it affected air defence

In mid-October terminals in Ukraine stopped working at speeds from roughly 130 to 161 km/h, making them unusable on interceptors chasing fast Shahed drones. On 24 October President Volodymyr Zelensky said Starlink and Starshield had returned to their previous speeds.

On 28 October Zelensky told journalists the shutdown was one of the reasons civilians died during attacks. “Now we destroy about 90% of Shaheds. When the attacks began, we started shooting down from 50 to 75–78%,” he said. According to the president, the Bars jet interceptor, which ran on Starshield, was the first to destroy a Russian jet drone, “and then Starshield stopped working”. Zelensky added that he did not know who made the decision: “I only know that technically SpaceX switches these systems on and off.”

The dispute so far

Musk argued that speed limits for the military package depend on the US government, and later accused Ukrainian forces of breaking the service’s rules. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said US authorities had not ordered the restrictions but that Starlink can take such decisions on its own. The European Commission urged SpaceX to fully restore the service, and bipartisan groups of members of Congress wrote to both Trump and Hegseth.

Why it matters

According to AP, concern in Congress over Musk’s control of Starlink has existed for years and was one reason Starshield was created. Without an independent investigation, the question of who restricted a link critical to Ukraine’s air defence, and why, remains officially unanswered.