UPDATE - Rubio denies US government involvement after Starlink slowdown in Ukraine
- 'That’s a private company. The President doesn’t run that company and can’t direct that company to do anything,' says US secretary of state
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- 'That’s a private company. The President doesn’t run that company and can’t direct that company to do anything,' says US secretary of state
UPDATES WITH REMARKS BY RUBIO AND TRUMP; CHANGES LEDE
By Riyaz ul Khaliq and Diyar Guldogan
ISTANBUL (AA) - US Secretary of State Marco Rubio denied Wednesday any US government involvement in a reported slowdown of Starlink services used by Ukraine amid the war with Russia.
“Starlink is a private company. They have a contract. They have contractual terms upon how that technology can be used. The important point is we cannot direct a private company as to the decisions they make or not make,” Rubio told reporters in India's financial capital, Mumbai.
Rubio is on a three-day visit to the South Asian nation.
“What I can tell you with certainty is the president of the United States, nor anyone in our system, ever requested that any changes to that system be made, and that's what we said repeatedly,” Rubio said.
Rubio also said President Donald Trump "has nothing to do" with the decisions made by Starlink, Starshield and SpaceX founder Elon Musk.
"That’s a private company. The President doesn’t run that company and can’t direct that company to do anything. I’m not aware of any foreknowledge, nor anyone – but again, the reporting was not about foreknowledge," he said.
The denial came after a report by The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday said Musk had ordered a slowdown of a military-grade version of Starlink used by Ukrainian forces.
US officials familiar with the situation told the Journal that Musk had capped the speeds of the Starlink satellite internet service used by Ukraine, rendering some of its military drones virtually useless.
Musk posted on X hours after the slowdown became public that "any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS," the acronym for the president of the United States.
Trump told reporters Wednesday that he did not know who was responsible for the Starlink slowdown, adding: "I don’t know who did it, but I was not involved."
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Tuesday that "we haven't pulled anything back," but "Starlink has the option to make decisions concerning its terms of service."
- Without US assistance, 'there would be no Ukraine': Rubio
Responding to a reporter’s question about whether the US national security adviser should have been given advance notice, since Starlink “is vital national security infrastructure for Ukraine,” Rubio said: “I'm not going to comment on what we knew that they might or might not do.”
“Suffice it to say that the reporting out there was that somehow the United States government was denying them something they needed in order to defend their country. That's not true. That's not accurate.”
“And for leaders in Ukraine to continue to represent that is also not accurate,” he added.
Rubio, however, warned that the Trump administration was “no longer going to be defensive about this topic.”
“Because… if it were not for the assistance of the United States, including under the Trump administration, there would be no Ukraine right now. Ukraine as a sovereign state would not exist.”
Rubio also clarified that the US military has a contract with SpaceX for Starshield and that “that's a different matter because that's something we are purchasing and using for our use.”
Diyar Güldoğan,Riyaz Khaliq Khaliq