Washington — Rep. Mike Turner, an Ohio Republican, is urging Congress to investigate reported interruptions to Ukraine’s Starlink satellite service, a SpaceX communications network owned by Elon Musk.
“There needs to be an investigation, we need to find out who these people are because lives are at risk and lives are lost over these things,” Turner said on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”
Ukrainian officials began reporting difficulties with Starlink last week. The system supports military communications and drone operations, raising questions about what caused the disruption and who may have been responsible. President Trump said Friday that he had not restricted Ukraine’s access and did not believe Musk was behind the issue. Secretary of State Marco Rubio likewise told reporters Saturday that the administration had “nothing to do with that.” Rubio said no one had ordered Starlink’s service to be slowed, describing the problem as something that “sort of happened,” while saying access had since been restored.
Turner said those explanations do not resolve the matter.
“This is something where there needs to be an investigation, there needs to be a congressional investigation,” Turner said Sunday. “We need to find out who these people are.”
Turner said service had returned in some locations but might still be unavailable in others, citing reports from Ukraine, including statements by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Zelenskyy said Saturday that Ukraine remained unable to deploy its interceptor systems against Russian drones because of the Starlink restrictions.
“People’s lives are at risk, and this is within Ukraine, this is areas where they’re trying to defend themselves,” Turner said. He described Starlink as “essential to the United States’ support of Ukraine” as the country responds to Russian attacks and said the service must be fully restored.
Sen. Kevin Cramer, a North Dakota Republican who also appeared on “Face the Nation” Sunday, joined Turner in calling for a congressional investigation.
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“I certainly support investigating what was the source of that decision, if in fact it was a decision at all,” Cramer said. “It may very well have been some sort of a technical glitch, I don’t know for sure.”
Cramer said lawmakers need to determine what happened. In the meantime, however, he argued that the priority should be restoring Starlink’s capabilities “on full scale” and expanding Ukraine’s ability to strike Russian launch sites inside Russia.
The lawmakers’ calls came after nine senators from both parties, including Republican Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine, John Cornyn of Texas and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, sought an inspector general review of the disruption last week.
In a letter to the Pentagon’s inspector general, the senators, led by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, requested an examination of “whether actions or decisions by the Department of Defense or its contractors contributed to these dangerous circumstances.”
“Any restrictions on these capabilities, particularly without advance notification, raise serious questions about the Department of Defense’s contractual oversight and its responsibility to ensure continuity of essential services,” the senators wrote.
