Volodymyr Zelenskyy feels ‘betrayed’ by Donald Trump over Starlink access

Ukrainian president accused US president of picking the other side over four years of war

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said he feels personally betrayed by Donald Trump after it emerged that Ukraine’s military has had its access to Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite squeezed, raising doubts about long-term US support for Kyiv.

Ahead of a meeting with prime minister Andy Burnham in Downing St, Zelenskyy appeared in a TV interview where he was asked whether the sudden restriction of Starlink was deliberate and if he felt betrayed by Trump.

Overnight Ukraine’s military reported that, without explanation, the Starlink satellite communications system, produced by Musk’s SpaceX but managed by the US government, was no longer working at speeds greater than 100mph.

“I am sure they knew what they did, absolutely. Because it was 1am at night, Starlink was blocked by SpaceX and the United States,” Zelenskyy said in an interview with Piers Morgan. “This decision will bring a lot of human losses … Of course, people will die.”

Trump denied that his administration has cut intelligence sharing on Tuesday, but Zelenskyy said in an interview with US broadcaster NPR aired on Wednesday that military advisers had received threats from the US that intelligence sharing could be limited in the future.

The two leaders fell out in the spring of 2025 during a disastrous visit by Zelenskyy to the Oval Office, where the US president said: “You don’t have the cards” to win the war. The row was followed by a brief pause in intelligence sharing and a desperate scramble by European allies to calm the row.

Burnham met Zelenskyy in Downing Street on Wednesday, hours after he promised MPs that the Ukrainian president “would not leave empty handed” and that he had tasked officials with drawing up further sanctions and options for speeding up military aid.

Zelenskyy had met with King Charles in Buckingham Palace earlier on Wednesday.

Burnham pledged that he will accelerate the supply of British lightweight multi-role missiles to Ukraine, which the country uses to counter Russian drone strikes and said they were looking for “all possible avenues” of further support.

“Sadly, what we have seen from Russia is further attacks on critical national infrastructure in Ukraine,” he said.

The meeting, which lasted just over an hour, began as Burnham greeted Zelenskyy with a hug on Downing Street, before the pair walked to the door of No 10 and posed for photographs, flanked by Irish guards in full ceremonial uniform.