A coalition of eight senators has formally requested that the Pentagon’s inspector general open an investigation into recent outages affecting Starshield, the military variant of SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service, in Ukraine. The request, delivered to the office of the inspector general on Thursday, cites a series of incidents that left Ukrainian forces without reliable battlefield communications and, according to Ukrainian officials, contributed to civilian casualties.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reported that Ukrainian units experienced degraded access to Starshield earlier this week and were not alerted in advance of incoming Russian missile strikes. He asserted that speed throttling on the system, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, impeded the military’s ability to detect and intercept drones, thereby exposing civilians to danger. Zelenskyy also claimed that Western partners failed to warn Ukraine of several days of Russian ballistic missile launches.

The letter from the senators notes that these communication breakdowns occurred amid heightened political tension between Zelenskyy and former President Donald Trump, who recently announced a plan to import Russian diesel to reduce U.S. fuel prices and called for Zelenskyy’s replacement. While the U.S. government has denied any deliberate reduction in intelligence sharing with Ukraine, the senators argue that the disruptions placed American personnel in harm’s way.

According to the lawmakers, U.S. diplomatic, military and security staff stationed in Ukraine encountered “serious difficulties” in reaching designated shelters during air raids, a problem attributed to the same communication failures. The letter emphasizes that the root cause of the outages — whether technical malfunction, policy shift, or other factor — remains undetermined, but that the potential for preventable endangerment warrants urgent scrutiny.

Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, who led the bipartisan effort, stated that protecting American personnel overseas is a fundamental obligation of the U.S. government. The letter, signed by four Democrats and four Republicans, demands that the Pentagon’s inspector general, Platte Moring, initiate an investigation and provide written confirmation of its status, along with an initial briefing, by November 1.

The inquiry would examine the technical and policy dimensions of the Starshield disruptions and assess the adequacy of coordination between U.S. agencies and Ukrainian partners. It would also evaluate measures needed to ensure reliable threat warnings for U.S. Embassy personnel in Kyiv, who are currently guarded by a Marine detachment.

While the precise sequence of events and any direct links between U.S. actions and the outages have not been conclusively established, the senators maintain that the stakes are high enough to merit a thorough, independent review. The request underscores growing bipartisan concern over the reliability of critical communications infrastructure in active conflict zones and its impact on the safety of U.S. personnel embedded in foreign theaters of operation.