Pentagon watchdog declines bipartisan request to investigate Starshield slowdowns in Ukraine

The Defense Department’s watchdog has declined a bipartisan request to open an investigation into the slowdown of the SpaceX’s military-grade Starlink system in Ukraine, according to a letter obtained by CNN.

Earlier this month, a group of nine bipartisan senators, led by Republican Sen. Thom Tillis and Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, wrote to the Pentagon inspector general asking for “an immediate investigation” into the disruptions to the Starshield and commercial-grade Starlink systems in Ukraine. Kyiv was blindsided in recent weeks with the speed restrictions, which officials said came without warning and severely hampered Ukraine’s defenses.

Pentagon Inspector General Platte Moring, in a letter dated Tuesday, said that the senators’ questions about the slowdowns and their impacts should be directed to the US Air Force and Space Force.

“They are better suited to address the matters raised in your letter and to coordinate any Department responses to your questions,” Moring wrote in his letter, which was first reported by the Associated Press.

Shaheen said in a statement Wednesday that “it is concerning that the inspector general has apparently decided not to investigate satellite communication disruptions that Ukraine relies on to protect its civilians.”

“The Trump Administration and SpaceX have provided conflicting accounts of what led to those disruptions, which weakened Ukraine’s defenses and put American personnel in Ukraine at risk unnecessarily,” the New Hampshire Democrat said. “There must be an independent accounting and review to determine responsibility and prevent this from happening in the future. I urge the Inspector General to conduct a full investigation.”

Mollie Halpern, the spokesperson for the Pentagon’s inspector general office, said that the office “carefully considered the congressional request and determined that the matters raised were best addressed by the Department.”

“Should new information come to light, we may reconsider,” she said.

The issues with Starshield 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.

It was not until this Saturday that the speeds were fully restored, and questions remain about who was behind the slowdowns.

Trump said that he was not responsible, and some within the US sought to cast blame Elon Musk, the Trump ally and billionaire head of SpaceX. However, there remain questions of whether he could singlehandedly stall the military system without US government knowledge or approval.

On Sunday, Musk appeared to confirm that SpaceX had throttled Starlink speeds but maintained that the military-grade Starshield is a separate system.

In a post on X, Musk accused the Ukrainian military of violating Starlink’s terms of service by using it “for offensive drone strikes to kill people.”

“That loophole was closed last week,” he said.

“Starshield, a different system, is controlled by the US government,” Musk said. “What they decide to do is up to them.”

An adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Serhiy Sternenko, disputed Musk’s accusation that Ukraine is using the commercial service to kill people, saying speed restrictions and the service’s unavailability over Russian territory made Ukraine “physically unable to use commercial Starlink” for medium- and long-range strikes into Russia.

Sternenko, a former Ukrainian Ministry of Defense adviser, also denied Musk’s claims. “As someone who was involved in the process at the Ministry of Defense, I can say with certainty that this is not true,” he said.

据 CNN 获得的一封信函显示，国防部监察机构拒绝了一项两党共同提出的请求，即对 SpaceX 在乌克兰的军用级星链系统运行速度放缓一事展开调查。

本月初，由共和党参议员汤姆·蒂利斯和民主党参议员珍妮·沙欣牵头的九位两党参议员联名致信五角大楼监察长，要求对乌克兰境内“星盾”（Starshield）和商用级“星链”（Starlink）系统遭受干扰一事展开“立即调查”。基辅方面表示，近几周来，乌克兰方面对网络速度限制措手不及，官员称这些限制来得毫无预警，严重削弱了乌克兰的防御能力。

五角大楼监察长普拉特·莫林在周二的一封信中表示，参议员们关于生产放缓及其影响的问题应该向美国空军和太空部队提出。

“他们更适合处理您在信中提出的问题，并协调部门对您提出的问题作出回应，”莫林在信中写道，美联社率先报道了这封信的内容。

沙欣周三在一份声明中表示，“令人担忧的是，监察长显然决定不调查乌克兰赖以保护其平民的卫星通信中断事件。”

这位来自新罕布什尔州的民主党议员表示：“特朗普政府和SpaceX公司对导致这些干扰事件的原因给出了相互矛盾的说法，这些干扰削弱了乌克兰的防御能力，并使在乌克兰的美国人员面临不必要的风险。必须进行独立的调查和审查，以确定责任方，并防止此类事件再次发生。我敦促监察长进行全面调查。”

五角大楼监察长办公室发言人莫莉·哈尔彭表示，该办公室“认真考虑了国会的要求，并认定所提出的问题最好由国防部来解决”。

“如果有新的信息出现，我们可能会重新考虑，”她说。

在政府威胁要扣留有关俄罗斯袭击炼油厂的情报，以及唐纳德·特朗普总统达成购买俄罗斯柴油和放松对莫斯科制裁的协议之后，星盾计划的问题才被发现。

直到本周六，车速才完全恢复，但究竟是谁造成了车速下降，仍然是个疑问。

特朗普声称自己对此不负有责任，美国国内一些人试图将矛头指向特朗普的盟友、SpaceX公司亿万富翁创始人埃隆·马斯克。然而，人们仍然质疑，在未经美国政府知情或批准的情况下，他是否能够单枪匹马地阻挠军事系统的升级。

周日，马斯克似乎证实了 SpaceX 已经降低了星链的速度，但他坚称军用级的星盾是一个独立的系统。

马斯克在 X 上发帖指责乌克兰军方违反了 Starlink 的服务条款，利用该服务“进行进攻性无人机袭击以杀害民众”。

他说：“那个漏洞上周已经被堵上了。”

“星盾系统是另一个系统，由美国政府控制，”马斯克说。“他们做什么决定，由他们自己决定。”

乌克兰总统泽连斯基的顾问谢尔盖·斯特年科反驳了马斯克关于乌克兰利用商业服务杀人的指控，称速度限制以及该服务在俄罗斯领土上不可用，使得乌克兰“实际上无法使用商业星链”对俄罗斯进行中远程打击。

曾任乌克兰国防部顾问的斯特年科也否认了马斯克的说法。他说：“作为国防部相关流程的参与者，我可以肯定地说，这不是真的。”