{"id":804285,"date":"2026-10-16T08:34:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-16T08:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/804285\/"},"modified":"2026-10-16T08:34:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-16T08:34:11","slug":"ukraine-war-briefing-starlink-access-restored-says-uks-streeting-after-hegseth-meeting-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/804285\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine war briefing: Starlink access restored, says UK\u2019s Streeting after Hegseth meeting | Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ukraine\u2019s access to Elon Musk\u2019s Starlink had been restored, according to UK defence secretary Wes Streeting. Ukraine said Starlink services had been restricted<\/a> on Wednesday, hampering the country\u2019s attack and air-defence drone missions, and triggering a new rift between Washington and Kyiv. On Thursday, Streeting said his US counterpart, Pete Hegseth, had assured him in a face-to-face meeting that the vital satellite communications system was back up and running. He said it was unclear what had caused the disruption, but added: \u201cThis is not the first time we\u2019ve seen a falling out between Washington and Kyiv.\u201d<\/p>\n

The order to limit Starlink access came from inside the White House, according to a report by Reuters, citing two US officials and a western official briefed on the matter. The \u2060officials said leaders at the defence \u2060department received a message that the service for the Ukrainian military needed to be slowed. The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, did not specify who in the White House made the decision or who was responsible for implementing the order. The Pentagon is the biggest customer of Starshield, which \u2060is the military-grade version of the Starlink service<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Amid growing doubts about long-term US commitment to Ukraine, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy met Nato chief Mark Rutte in Brussels and held a string of bilateral meetings with European leaders before he was set to join an EU summit on Friday. French president Emmanuel Macron on Thursday said it was \u201ccrucial\u201d that Ukraine receive \u201call the means necessary to protect itself\u201d after meeting Zelenskyy. \u201cI can reassure you, dear Ukrainian friends and President Zelenskyy: YOU ARE NOT ALONE,\u201d Polish prime minister Donald Tusk posted online.<\/p>\n

Vladimir Putin has said that recent \u2060Ukrainian \u200bstrikes on Russian oil refineries had not caused significant \u2060damage and vowed that Moscow would respond. \u201cThey \u2060hit here and there. Nothing \u200bparticularly significant. Nevertheless \u200cthey are \u200ccarrying on,\u201d the Russian president was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency. His comments \u200ccame after a major Ukrainian drone attack ignited a fire at an oil refinery in Russia\u2019s Ryazan region on Thursday morning, according \u200cto the regional governor. It was the first confirmed \u200bUkrainian attack on a Russian energy facility since US president Donald Trump abruptly declared an \u201cenergy ceasefire\u201d<\/a> that neither Russia nor Ukraine said they had agreed to.<\/p>\n

The US treasury department has extended a sanctions waiver on Russian oil company Lukoil for service stations outside Russia through April 2027. Thursday\u2019s announcement allows Lukoil-branded stations in countries like the US to continue serving customers until 24 April next year. The extension comes a week after Trump said he had secured an agreement with Russia<\/a> to supply diesel to American and global markets, with the US treasury issuing a temporary licence to enable flows. The latest licence, like an earlier one, does not allow the \u201ctransfer of funds to any person or account located in the Russian Federation\u201d.<\/p>\n

Three people were killed and six others injured after the Kirovohrad region of central Ukraine came under a Russian drone attack lasting more than 10 hours, Ukraine\u2019s emergency services said Thursday. Between midnight and Thursday morning, Russia launched more than 850 drones at Ukraine, Zelenskyy said on X. He added that the barrage came \u201cprecisely at a time when the speed of our defensive capabilities is being artificially restricted,\u201d an apparent reference to the Starlink restrictions on drones. Russian aerial attacks hit 15 Ukrainian regions, he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ukraine\u2019s access to Elon Musk\u2019s Starlink had been restored, according to UK defence secretary Wes Streeting. Ukraine said…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":804286,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-804285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=804285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/804286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=804285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=804285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=804285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}