Trump says Starlink restored in Ukraine as Russian strikes kill three

Starlink access has been restored to Ukraine after an outage that Kyiv said left the country more exposed to Russian attacks. President Trump said SpaceX's Starshield satellite network was once again running at full speed in Ukraine and that Elon Musk had restored it. Ukrainian officials and the UK defence secretary referred to the system as Starlink.

Sources inside Kyiv's defence ministry said access to the Starlink satellite system had been restored a day after Volodymyr Zelensky said he felt betrayed by Donald Trump. At the Pentagon, UK Defence Secretary Wes Streeting said he had been reassured that Ukraine's access to the vital satellite communications system had been restored after meeting his US counterpart Pete Hegseth.

Trump declined to say whether he or someone else had asked Musk to lift restrictions. Speaking to reporters as he left the White House for a campaign rally, he said: "I don't want to comment on it, you know, whether I called or whether somebody else called." He added: "I guess the bottom line, he put it back." Musk had previously denied being behind the slowdown. The problem started last week after Trump criticised the Ukrainians for targeting Russian oil refineries.

Three people were killed after a wave of Russian drone strikes on Ukraine overnight. Businesses, logistics centres, warehouse facilities and residential buildings were hit in attacks that reportedly lasted for over 10 hours. Ukraine also appeared to abandon hope of an energy ceasefire and attacked a Russian oil refinery.

The Streeting-Hegseth meeting was described as a meet and greet laced with awkwardness, with no meeting of minds on Ukraine. Before the meeting, Streeting gave a speech in Washington in which he called Ukraine the front line for freedom and warned against appeasement. He said: "If borders can be redrawn by force, if the sovereignty of nations becomes negotiable, the consequence shall not be confined to Ukraine or to my continent." As the two men met, reporters shouted questions to Hegseth, including: "Are you Vladimir Putin's puppet on Ukraine?"

Reuters reported that the Trump administration was considering lifting sanctions on some so-called shadow fleet vessels to reduce global freight rates and bring more oil and refined products to market. The restoration also prompted criticism that private control of satellite communications and US control of digital infrastructure left Europe exposed.