Elon Musk’s SpaceX satellite internet service, Starlink, suffered a widespread outage on September 15, 2025, with disruptions reported across multiple continents.
A short statement appeared on Starlink’s official website acknowledging the problem: “Starlink service is currently down. Our team is investigating.” The message was removed after services began to recover.
According to outage tracking site Downdetector, more than 43,000 users reported being offline as of 00:35 local time (04:35 GMT). Users across North America, Europe, and Asia confirmed connectivity issues.
Impact on Ukraine’s military
The outage also disrupted communications on the Ukrainian front lines. Robert Brovdi, commander of the Ukrainian Unmanned Systems Forces and known by his callsign Madyar, said on Telegram that Starlink was down “across the entire front” as of 07:28 local time.
By 08:00, attempts were underway to gradually restore connections, Brovdi added, calling the incident “another global SpaceX outage.”
The terminals provide vital internet access for military units, hospitals, schools, and other institutions. Defense experts estimate that Ukrainian forces have access to around 100,000 terminals, with about 45,000 operating in civilian infrastructure.
Strategic dependence
Ukraine received its first Starlink terminals in February 2022 shortly after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, following an appeal to Elon Musk by Digital Transformation Minister Mykhailo Fedorov. Since then, Starlink has been used extensively for troop communications, drone navigation, and unmanned maritime operations.
Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski has said Warsaw covers about $50 million annually in subscription costs for Ukraine’s Starlink access. Western officials have frequently highlighted the system as indispensable to keeping Ukraine connected despite Russia’s attacks on communication infrastructure.
This reliance has also raised concerns. A July 2025 Reuters investigation reported that in September 2022, Starlink coverage was curtailed during Ukraine’s counteroffensive in Kherson, disrupting operations. Other reports in 2023 suggested that coverage near Crimea was restricted to prevent strikes on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. Both incidents underscored the vulnerability of Ukraine’s war effort to decisions taken by a private company.
In February 2025, Reuters reported that US officials had considered linking Ukraine’s Starlink access to negotiations over mineral rights, a suggestion Musk later rejected, promising never to disconnect Ukrainian users.
Previous outages
The September 15, 2025, outage follows a global disruption on July 24, 2025, which lasted about 2.5 hours and was blamed on a “failure of core internal software services.” Ukrainian officials said drone operations had to be postponed at that time.
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