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Pentagon IG refuses to investigate Starlink/Starshield slowdown in Ukraine
Inspector general rejected request from Democratic and Republican senators.
The Pentagon inspector general’s office declined a request from US senators to investigate restrictions recently imposed on the Ukraine military’s use of SpaceX’s satellite network.
Ukraine, which uses SpaceX’s Starlink service and the military version known as Starshield, said earlier this month that military drones lost satellite connectivity when traveling above 161 kilometers per hour (100 miles per hour). The limit was removed after about 10 days.
Five Democratic and four Republican senators sent an October 15 letter to Department of Defense Inspector General Platte Moring, asking for a probe into the reported disruptions of Starlink and Starshield. The letter asked, among other things, “whether any restrictions on Starlink or Starshield services were directed, authorized, or implemented by SpaceX, the Department of Defense, or other US government entities; whether such restrictions were consistent with applicable US government contracts, and what actions, if any, the Department of Defense took in response.”
Platte told the senators in a letter Tuesday that the questions should be directed to the US Air Force and Space Force, according to CNN. “They are better suited to address the matters raised in your letter and to coordinate any Department responses to your questions,” Moring wrote.
A spokesperson for the Pentagon inspector general’s office told Ars today, “The Department of War Office of Inspector General (The DoW OIG) answered recent correspondence from members of Congress regarding Starlink… We carefully considered the congressional request and determined that the matters raised were best addressed by the DOW. Should new information come to light, we may reconsider.”
We asked the Department of Defense whether it plans to investigate and will update this article if it responds.
The satellite problems “were discovered after the administration threatened to withhold intelligence to Kyiv over its strikes on Russian refineries and after President Donald Trump made a deal to buy Russian diesel and ease sanctions on Moscow,” CNN wrote.
The letter asking for an inspector general investigation was sent by Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), the top democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; Thom Tillis (R-N.C.); Dick Durbin (D-Ill.); Susan Collins (R-Maine); Jack Reed (D-R.I.); John Cornyn (R-Texas); Chris Coons (D-Del.); Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska); and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.).
“These restrictions reportedly degraded Ukraine’s ability to conduct defensive operations against Russian drone and missile attacks on civilian infrastructure… Starlink and Starshield capabilities are important components of Ukraine’s military communications infrastructure, supporting command and control, unmanned systems, and operational coordination,” senators wrote.