Trump denies role in Starshield outage, says Musk 'probably' not responsible either

US President Donald Trump on Friday (local time) denied any involvement in disruptions to the Starshield system, which Ukraine relies on for drone operations against Russia, saying flatly, "That wasn't me."

Speaking to reporters at the White House before departing for Georgia, Trump also said he did not believe Elon Musk was responsible for the outage, according to Reuters and Bloomberg, Yonhap reported.

Starshield is a military communications system built on Starlink, the commercial satellite internet service operated by Musk's SpaceX.

"I don't know who else would have done that," Trump said, adding that the system was "the same as it was before" to his knowledge.

Trump's remarks suggested he views Starshield as operating normally and that any slowdown or restricted access Ukraine may have experienced was unrelated to him.

Ukraine's military has been using Starshield terminals — provided through US government support — attached to drones to strike key Russian facilities and shoot down Russian attack drones.

Ukraine suspects the Starshield speed restrictions stem from tensions between the Trump administration and President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Zelensky, attending an EU summit, said Starlink service had still not returned to normal and described the incident as "very unpleasant and a dangerous surprise."

French President Emmanuel Macron, speaking to reporters after the summit, said European leaders were doing their best to help Ukraine strengthen its defenses through satellite imagery and early warning systems that the country urgently needs.

However, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said Starlink was "truly essential" for Ukraine and that, unfortunately, Europe could not immediately replace that capability.

Latvian Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs also told reporters that Starlink was "the key for Ukraine to actually fight and counter-attack," adding, "It takes time for us to have the same capacity. We have capacity, but not enough."