Rubio says in Mumbai the U.S. did not order changes to Ukraine’s Starlink service and denies deliberately withholding support

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday that President Donald Trump and the U.S. government did not order changes to Ukraine’s Starlink service and denied that Washington was deliberately withholding capabilities Ukraine needed for its defense.

Rubio made the remarks to reporters at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai on October 21, during his visit to India.

“Starlink is a private company. They have a contract and terms upon how that technology can be used,” Rubio said. “We cannot direct a private company on the decisions they make.” He said neither Trump nor anyone else in the U.S. government had requested changes to the service.

Rubio drew a distinction between Starlink and Starshield, saying Starlink is a commercial service while Starshield is provided under contract to the U.S. military. He said he was not aware of any advance U.S. knowledge of reported Starlink restrictions and rejected suggestions that Washington had directed them.

“The reporting out there was somehow the U.S. government was denying Ukraine something they needed in order to defend their country. That’s not true. That’s not accurate,” Rubio said.

He also defended the scale of U.S. support for Kyiv, saying no country had done more to help Ukraine and arguing that the country would not exist today as a sovereign state without billions of dollars in American assistance provided under both the Biden and Trump administrations.

Rubio credited Ukrainian forces for preventing the war from ending quickly, noting that predictions of a Russian victory within days had proved wrong. He said the bravery of Ukrainian fighters had been central to resisting a much larger country.