Don’t touch me on my refinery

War of attrition: Transformers at Luhansk power station after Russian shelling in 2022. (Source: State Emergency Service of Ukraine)

The Russian war on Ukraine seems at an inflection point, with news that the White House has imposed limits on the SpaceX Starshield system, which Ukraine uses for communications and offensive drone operations. Reuters said Defence department leaders had received a directive from the White House that the Starshield service to Ukraine be slowed. The wire service spoke to three officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Ukrainian officials have said receptors in their territory stopped working when they were mounted on fastmoving objects, and only worked properly when flying at speeds of under 160km/h. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said a request from Kyiv to use the Starshield system for attacks deep inside Russia was “under discussion”.

He denied that an order to slow down the service had come from the White House, calling the reports “categorically false”. Meanwhile, President Trump said of Ukraine’s strikes on Russian refineries: “All he’s [Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy] doing is making the world oil price higher. Well, I think that’s a disgrace,” he told a Newsmax interview. Trump also tweeted that Ukraine should get a new leader, which met with Musk’s approval. Trump said on October 9 he had made a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin to supply more than 2.25mn barrels of diesel to US and global markets, followed by an additional 3.67mn barrels, and then another 7.3mn barrels “immediately thereafter”. As of mid-October, the retail price for a gallon of diesel is just over $6 a gallon. The US will vote in its midterm election on November 3.