Zelensky advisor hits back at Musk's claim Ukrainian President 'violated Starlink's terms of service'

Ukraine's Starlink saga continues, with Elon Musk slamming President Volodymyr Zelensky while claiming he violated the communication company's terms of service. Things have been rumbling along since the Ukrainian military realized a speed limitation had crippled drones and weapons travelling over 160 km/h (100 mph), with fingers being pointed at Musk, and him shifting the blame to others.

Even though Elon Musk and Donald Trump seem to have buried the hatchet after the former spectacularly linked the President of the United States to the Epstein files, they're in danger of opening up old wounds.

The White House has put the blame firmly on Starlink and reiterated that the POTUS didn't intervene, while Zelensky himself wrote: "This decision will bring a lot of human losses. Of course, people will die."

Zelensky has continued to speak out on the incident, claiming he has evidence that Starlink services were purposefully slowed, and demanded they be restored. It comes as Musk again called Zelensky to step down as president, but the story doesn't end here.

What has Elon Musk said about the Starlink saga?

Throwing fuel on the fire, Musk took to X to air further grievances with Zelensky. Resharing someone else's post reminding us that Starlink is supposed to be used for defense instead of attack, the world's richest man referred to it as a 'civilian commercial service'.

Maintaining that Starlink has never been allowed for use with offensive drone strikes, he again brought the US government into the argument by stating it's in charge of Starshield. Listed as a separate arm of SpaceX, Starshield is engineered for specific use by the military, defense, and intelligence agencies.

Musk says Starshield is operated by the US government and it's up to it what it allows the network to be used for.

Calling Zelensky to task, Musk added: "Ukraine military violated Starlink terms of service and used it for offensive drone strikes to kill people. That loophole was closed last week."

Stating that Starlink is critical to defending Ukraine, Musk claimed it's the only system that can't be jammed or blown up: "Were Starlink to be turned off, the Ukrainian front line would collapse immediately. This is NOT a threat, it is simply a statement of fact."

He went on to hype Starlink as stopping Russia from 'overrunning' Ukraine toward the start of the war, said SpaceX has done more to defend the country than any private company on Earth, and concluded: "I have nothing but UTTER CONTEMPT for the virtue-signaling evil warmongers who push for endless slaughter and offer no realistic solution to the conflict. May you burn in hell."

Did Ukraine violate Starlink's terms of service?

Even though Musk said this was the end of the story, he replied in the comments below and doubled down on the idea that Ukraine 'violated' Starlink's terms of service: "For the fools out there, Zelensky himself posted about using Starlink for offensive drone strikes, which has always been against Starlink’s terms of service."

The ongoing war of the words has landed on the radar of Zelensky's defense technology advisor, Serhii Beskrestnov, saying Starlink's restrictions made it impossible to be used for an offensive attack anyway.

Beskrestnov wrote: "It’s very strange that Elon Musk doesn’t know about the restrictions on Starlink’s operation in Ukraine."

He explained that Starlink's civilian system had restrictions of between 70 and 90 kmh within Ukraine and didn't work in Russia, adding: "Therefore, we physically cannot use commercial Starlink for deep strikes or medium-range strikes."

Russia has vowed to revisit three-way negotiations between itself, the USA, and Ukraine in November, while First Lady Melania Trump brokered a localized ceasefire around the Russian-occupied town of Oleshky in a southern region of Ukraine.

Still, both sides continue to bombard each other with missiles while Musk and Zelensky fire their own verbal missiles across the world.