Elon Musk's Starlink and its military-grade version Starshield has been the backbone of Ukraine in its war efforts against Russia. However, a restriction of Starshield earlier this week alarmed the country's military and government officials this week, with commanders reporting lost drones and disrupted missions. The incident raised fresh questions about Ukraine’s reliance on the Starshield program and who actually controls access to it. Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski also slammed Musk for the outage in an X post saying: "Hey, Elon Musk, you big man, are you once again playing politics with your products? As your European customers we are keeping a close eye on you." Notably, the EU has been making a rival of Starlink for many years now with over 300+ satellites but the first satelite will only launch in 2029.
