Ukraine’s drone forces lost some battlefield capacity after restrictions were suddenly imposed on the use of U.S.-made Starlink terminals, Ukrainian officials said on Wednesday, as Kyiv endured another night of Russian missile attacks.

The Associated Press reported that the limits affected Starlink terminals mounted on drones. A Ukrainian adviser said the change disrupted operations and could make slower-flying attack drones easier targets for Russian defences. Ukrainian officials also describe Starlink as important for interceptor systems, long-range missions and logistics, not only for offensive strikes.

The report does not establish that every terminal was disabled or that the service had been completely cut off. It describes restrictions with operational consequences, while the technical scope and duration remained unclear. SpaceX and the White House had not immediately commented, according to AP.

The communications dispute arrived alongside a separate intelligence concern. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine had not received the usual advance warning from Western partners about an initial Russian ballistic missile attack on Kyiv. He did not identify which partners he meant. Donald Trump said the United States had not stopped sharing intelligence with Ukraine.

Those statements leave two issues that should not be collapsed into one. Starlink is a privately operated communications network used by Ukraine’s military, while missile warnings involve state intelligence and defence systems. A restriction on one does not prove that the other has been withdrawn, even though both developments can be experienced on the battlefield as a loss of warning time and connectivity.

Kyiv police said five people were killed and 36 injured in the Russian attack that lasted from Tuesday evening into Wednesday morning, AP reported. The new strike followed another night of attacks and came as the Ukrainian military was already trying to preserve drone operations against Russian defences.

The broader question is now about resilience. Ukraine’s battlefield network depends on a mixture of national systems, foreign intelligence, commercial technology and improvised engineering. When any one layer changes without warning, the effect can spread quickly from communications to targeting, interception and evacuation.

For now, the confirmed account is limited: Ukrainian officials reported operational restrictions on Starlink terminals, Zelenskyy reported a missing warning for an initial missile attack, and Trump denied that U.S. intelligence sharing had stopped. The technical and political explanations remain unsettled.