Controversy over Musk military system in Ukraine pitches relations with US into deeper crisis

Evgeniy Maloletka/AP

The worst crisis in US-Ukraine relations since last year’s Oval Office meltdown is deteriorating further over a dispute about who ordered a disruption to a critical Ukrainian military system running on Elon Musk’s Starlink internet service .

President Volodymyr Zelensky is meanwhile warning he will resume attacks on Russian oil refineries that President Donald Trump insists are worsening high diesel and gasoline prices ahead of US midterm elections.

The new rupture reflects a stark new reality for Ukraine as it fights for its life: Trump’s drive to defray the politically ruinous energy costs of his war, in Iran, is making it harder and more dangerous for Ukraine to win its own.

Trump lashed out at the Ukrainian leader in an interview with Newsmax on Thursday.

“I’m not a big fan of Zelensky. They’ve destroyed that country,” he said, apparently blaming the devastating results of the war on a nation defending itself against Russian invaders. “I find Zelensky to be more difficult to deal with than Putin.”

This is not the first time that Zelensky and Ukraine have fallen afoul of Trump ahead of a US election. In a 2019 phone call , the president used the prospect of military aid to try to pressure Zelensky into opening an investigation into Joe Biden and his son Hunter. The move led to Trump’s first impeachment.

Ukraine’s latest entanglement in US politics is fueling concerns in Washington and Europe that the president is not just prioritizing his own political needs but is now taking a series of steps to actively help Putin.

The latest crisis between Washington and Kyiv started when Trump last Friday announced a sanctions-busting deal to buy diesel from Russia .

The Trump administration then warned Ukraine at the weekend that the US could halt intelligence-sharing for its military operations and block European purchases of US-made weapons if it did not stop long-range attacks on Russia’s refineries.

Amid a furious backlash, including among many Republicans, Trump announced a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine covering energy installations — but later signaled that he hadn’t informed the mystified combatants about it beforehand.

Ukraine observed the pseudo-truce, only for Russia to launch devastating air and drone strikes against its energy plants that left 600,000 people in the dark. On Tuesday, Zelensky said his government had not received its usual early warning from the US before a Russian ballistic missile attack hit a major power plant in Kyiv and damaged a residential building.

The showdown with Washington left Ukraine especially embittered because it came against a backdrop of relentless missile attacks on civilians that drew no significant US condemnation.

Katya Futyma, a 23-year-old resident of Kyiv, told CNN’s Jim Sciutto on Thursday that missile attacks in the capital were becoming increasingly scary. “You never know, like any second it could hit maybe your house, maybe your (neighbor’s) house,” she said. Asked why Russian ballistic missiles were now arriving without warning, she replied: “I think it’s political … the US had warned us before.”

The vulnerability of civilians was reinforced on Thursday when CNN reported that Ukraine has run out of missiles for the US-made Patriot air-defense system. Trump had earlier this year publicly raised the tantalizing possibility of licensing Ukraine to produce its own versions of the vital weapon. But he has not followed through on a step that would surely irritate Russia.

By Thursday, Zelensky’s patience had run out and he announced a resumption of attacks on Russian energy installations, which have led to lines at gas stations in parts of the country, as he seeks to increase pressure on Putin.

“We’re done,” he told the Financial Times in an interview. Zelensky accused the US of envisaging more deals with Putin, possibly for gas, which he predicted would be unpopular in America. “Everybody will want to ask how it can be when some people are surviving, fighting, dying — and you make … business with the guys with such aggression,” he told the paper.

The drama over the SpaceX Starshield system, a military-grade version of Musk’s Starlink service, did not simply significantly escalate the furor in Washington and Kyiv. It raised fresh questions about the global role and influence of the world’s richest man, whose technologies have become indispensable in a new age of warfare.

Ukrainian generals were shocked by the limits on the Starshield system, which is owned and controlled not by Musk but by the US government.

The restrictions effectively limited the speed of Ukrainian military hardware, including drones, and reduced the military’s capacity to communicate and to operate war planes and helicopters. These curbs amounted to a significant military advantage to Russia’s forces on the battlefield.

There is a growing mystery in Washington over what led to the slowdown. Musk said in a post on X on Wednesday that “any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS.” But two senior US officials told CNN that the order to limit Starshield did not come from Trump. Some officials are increasingly convinced that Musk was in large part to blame.

Reuters reported on Thursday evening that the order to limit the satellite system came from inside the White House, citing two US officials and a Western official briefed on the matter.

Zelensky is in no doubt that the limits were deliberate. “It was not a technical problem,” he told the Financial Times. A Ukrainian military source told the paper that the full functionality of the system has now been restored and speed limits were lifted.

Inna Varenytsia/Reuters/File

The Starshield episode followed recent moves and rhetoric by Trump that have dismayed allies who believe the only path to ending the war lies in pressuring Putin — who launched an illegal invasion of Ukraine in 2022 in a bid to crush the former Soviet republic’s sovereignty.

Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP/File

Trump’s US critics argue that the diesel deal is just the latest example of his habit of appeasing Putin, since it will do little to lower prices before the midterm elections. But if followed through in its entirety, the agreement will inject billions of dollars into the Russian economy after years of international sanctions and will likely be used to bolster the Russian war machine.

“Trump is desperate to do anything to help improve his standing and the standing of Republicans running for the Senate in these midterm elections,” Delaware Democratic Sen. Chris Coons told CNN News Central on Wednesday.

As a strategic matter, the diesel deal is especially puzzling because, as CNN reported in March , Russia provided Iran with intelligence about the locations of US ships, aircraft and personnel earlier in the war. It also comes as Russia is accused of sabotage and harassment operations against US NATO allies. The head of MI5, Britain’s domestic intelligence service, this week warned Moscow had become “aggressor number one” and was conducting a campaign of hybrid warfare against the United Kingdom and its allies.

The administration says the president is still searching for openings to forge peace. “I think, actually, Putin wants to make a deal more than Zelensky,” Trump said on Monday.

But there has been no sign since Trump returned to office last year that Putin has moderated his position — that Ukraine should hand over critical territory in the country’s east that Kremlin forces have not captured — in return for an end to the war. This is a deal Zelensky could never make: It would dishonor Ukraine’s war dead and allow Russia to build a beachhead for a future invasion.

But there is an alternative interpretation of this latest blunt application of Trump’s “America First” policy.

Tom Keatinge, director of the Center for Finance and Security at the Royal United Services Institute in London, told CNN International on Thursday: “Donald Trump is putting his electoral position ahead of the security, the safety, the lives of Ukrainian people, and this should not be lost on viewers and on policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic.”

CNN’s Zachary Cohen contributed reporting.

叶夫根尼·马洛列特卡/美联社

自去年白宫危机以来，美乌关系中最严重的危机正在进一步恶化，起因是双方就谁下令破坏乌克兰关键军事系统（该系统运行在埃隆·马斯克的星链互联网服务上）的争议。

与此同时，俄罗斯总统泽连斯基警告称，他将恢复对俄罗斯炼油厂的袭击。美国​​总统特朗普坚称，这些袭击加剧了美国中期选举前高企的柴油和汽油价格。

新的裂痕反映了乌克兰在为生存而战时面临的严峻新现实：特朗普为了弥补其在伊朗战争中造成的政治灾难性的能源成本，使得乌克兰赢得自己的战争变得更加困难和危险。

周四，特朗普在接受 Newsmax 采访时猛烈抨击了乌克兰领导人。

“我不太喜欢泽连斯基。他们毁了那个国家，”他说道，显然是在将战争的毁灭性后果归咎于一个自卫抵抗俄罗斯侵略者的国家。“我觉得泽连斯基比普京更难对付。”

这并非泽连斯基和乌克兰首次在美国大选前与特朗普发生冲突。2019年的一次通话中，特朗普利用军事援助的前景试图向泽连斯基施压，要求其对乔·拜登及其子亨特展开调查。此举最终导致特朗普首次遭到弹劾。

乌克兰最近卷入美国政治，加剧了华盛顿和欧洲的担忧，他们认为总统不仅优先考虑自己的政治需求，而且现在正在采取一系列措施积极帮助普京。

华盛顿和基辅之间的最新危机始于上周五，当时特朗普宣布了一项违反制裁的协议，将从俄罗斯购买柴油。

特朗普政府随后在周末警告乌克兰，如果乌克兰不停止对俄罗斯炼油厂的远程攻击，美国可能会停止与其共享军事行动的情报，并阻止欧洲购买美国制造的武器。

在包括许多共和党人在内的强烈反对声中，特朗普宣布俄罗斯和乌克兰之间就能源设施达成停火协议——但后来又表示，他事先并未将此事告知感到困惑的交战双方。

乌克兰遵守了所谓的停火协议，但俄罗斯却对其能源工厂发动了毁灭性的空袭和无人机袭击，导致60万人陷入黑暗。周二，泽连斯基表示，在俄罗斯弹道导弹袭击基辅一家大型发电厂并损坏一栋居民楼之前，他的政府没有像往常一样收到来自美国的预警。

与华盛顿的对抗让乌克兰尤其感到愤慨，因为这场对抗的背景是乌克兰不断遭受针对平民的导弹袭击，而美国却没有对此进行任何实质性的谴责。

23岁的基辅居民卡佳·富蒂玛周四告诉CNN记者吉姆·夏托，首都的导弹袭击越来越令人恐惧。“你永远不知道，它可能随时击中你的房子，或者你（邻居的）房子，”她说。当被问及为什么俄罗斯弹道导弹现在会在没有预警的情况下袭击我们时，她回答说：“我认为这是政治原因……美国之前警告过我们。”

周四，CNN报道称乌克兰已耗尽用于美国制造的“爱国者”防空系统的导弹，这进一步凸显了平民的脆弱性。今年早些时候，特朗普曾公开提出授权乌克兰生产其自身版本的这种关键武器，这一诱人的可能性至今仍未实现，而这一举措无疑会激怒俄罗斯。

到周四，泽连斯基的耐心已经耗尽，他宣布恢复对俄罗斯能源设施的袭击，导致该国部分地区的加油站排起长队，他试图借此加大对普京的压力。

“我们完了，”他在接受《金融时报》采访时表示。泽连斯基指责美国计划与普京达成更多交易，可能是天然气交易，他预测这在美国会不受欢迎。“每个人都会问，当一些人正在挣扎求生、战斗、死去的时候，你们怎么能和这些如此咄咄逼人的人做生意呢？”他告诉该报。

围绕SpaceX“星盾”（Starshield）系统（马斯克“星链”（Starlink）服务的军用版本）的争议，不仅显著加剧了华盛顿和基辅的紧张局势，更引发了人们对这位世界首富在全球角色和影响力的新质疑。在新时代的战争中，他的技术已变得不可或缺。

乌克兰将军们对“星盾”系统的限制感到震惊，该系统并非由马斯克所有和控制，而是由美国政府所有和控制。

这些限制措施有效地限制了乌克兰军事装备（包括无人机）的运行速度，并削弱了乌克兰军队的通信能力以及战机和直升机的作战能力。这些限制措施使俄罗斯军队在战场上获得了显著的军事优势。

华盛顿方面对此次速度放缓的原因越来越感到困惑。马斯克周三在X上发帖称，“任何速度或使用限制都由美国军方最终决定，总统也会做出最终决定。”但两位美国高级官员告诉CNN，限制“星盾”的命令并非来自特朗普。一些官员越来越相信，马斯克对此负有很大责任。

路透社周四晚间报道称，限制卫星系统的命令来自白宫内部，报道援引了两名美国官员和一名了解此事的西方官员的话。

泽连斯基毫不怀疑限速是人为设置的。“这不是技术问题，”他告诉《金融时报》。一位乌克兰军方消息人士告诉该报，目前系统功能已全部恢复，限速措施也已取消。

Inna Varenytsia/路透社/文件

“星盾”事件发生之前，特朗普最近的一些举动和言论令盟友感到沮丧，他们认为结束战争的唯一途径是向普京施压——普京于 2022 年发动了对乌克兰的非法入侵，企图摧毁这个前苏联加盟共和国的主权。

Julia Demaree Nikhinson/美联社/档案照片

特朗普在美国的批评者认为，柴油协议不过是他惯于安抚普京的最新例证，因为该协议在中期选举前对降低油价收效甚微。但如果该协议得以全面实施，将在多年国际制裁后为俄罗斯经济注入数十亿美元，并可能被用于加强俄罗斯的战争机器。

“特朗普不惜一切代价来改善他本人以及参加中期参议院选举的共和党人的支持率，”特拉华州民主党参议员克里斯·库恩斯周三告诉 CNN 新闻中心。

从战略角度来看，这笔柴油交易尤其令人费解，因为正如CNN三月份报道的那样，俄罗斯在战争初期曾向伊朗提供有关美国舰船、飞机和人员位置的情报。此外，俄罗斯还被指控对美国北约盟国进行破坏和骚扰行动。英国国内情报机构军情五处处长本周警告称，莫斯科已成为“头号侵略者”，并正在对英国及其盟国发动混合战争。

美国政府表示，总统仍在寻求促成和平的契机。“我认为，实际上，普京比泽连斯基更想达成协议，”特朗普周一表示。

但自特朗普去年重返白宫以来，没有任何迹象表明普京的立场有所缓和——即普京要求乌克兰交出克里姆林宫军队尚未占领的东部关键领土，以换取战争结束。泽连斯基绝不会接受这样的交易：这不仅是对乌克兰阵亡将士的侮辱，还会让俄罗斯为未来的入侵建立滩头阵地。

但对于特朗普“美国优先”政策的这种最新粗暴运用，还有另一种解释。

伦敦皇家联合军种研究所金融与安全中心主任汤姆·基廷周四告诉 CNN 国际频道：“唐纳德·特朗普将他的选举地位置于乌克兰人民的安全、保障和生命之上，大西洋两岸的观众和政策制定者都不应该忽视这一点。”

CNN的扎卡里·科恩对此报道亦有贡献。