Elon Musk, Starlink and Vladimir Putin

Ukraine says its satellite access is finally back to full speed, but the throttling episode of recent weeks has mushroomed into a larger story about the Trump Administration and an indispensable battlefield technology. Elon Musk did himself no favors over the weekend with a credulous social-media outburst about the Russia-Ukraine war.An artilleryman of the Special Rifle Police Battalion of Zaporizhzhia region sets up Starlink satellite internet system.Nobody is stepping up to take credit for slowing down Ukraine’s eyes and ears in the sky. Mr. Musk’s odd explanation is that Ukraine violated the “terms of service” of Starlink, a commercial product, by using it for offensive military purposes. But that sounds like a dodge. Ukraine said the slowdown also hit Starshield, the military equivalent that helps Kyiv push the Russians out of its territory.Mr. Musk has insisted that Starshield is under U.S. political control, as it should be. The Trump Administration has denied it is reducing such help to Ukraine. “I’ve heard it was fixed,” President Trump said late last week. “But if it’s not, I’ll speak to him,” meaning Mr. Musk. It’s hard to escape the conclusion that the slowdown was a project between someone in the Administration and Mr. Musk.Meanwhile, someone on the SpaceX board should be assigned to keep Mr. Musk away from his keyboard. “The endless slaughter of Ukrainian and Russians must stop,” Mr. Musk posted, adding the public should have “some sympathy for the poor Russian conscripts too. Those kids have no choice but to fight and die in drone strikes.” Another installment: “May the bloodthirsty warmongers, who push for a war that never ends, burn in hell!”But who is responsible for the endless slaughter? That would be Vladimir Putin, who elected to roll tanks over the Ukrainian border in 2022 and continues to throw tens of thousands of men into the fight even as he gains almost no territory.The practical effect of the SpaceX slowdown was to help Mr. Putin do more killing, and the Russian dictator is terrorizing Ukrainian schools, parks and grocery stores with missiles to force Ukraine's surrender. Mr. Musk can spare us his moral indignation, since throttling Ukraine is abetting the bloodletting.The episode has managed to unite lawmakers in Congress who are otherwise tearing each other apart over the midterm election. Democrats are vowing investigations, and they’re exploiting the affair to make the public more cynical about tech “oligarchs.” Progressives are now talking about nationalizing Mr. Musk’s technology, which would be a disaster on many levels but which Mr. Musk’s Putin aid is inviting.The irony is that the fastest route to ending the killing is extending Starshield’s reach several hundred kilometers into Russia, to put pressure on Mr. Putin and eliminate more of his capacity to launch strikes on Ukraine. This is what Republican lawmakers visiting Ukraine recently proposed, in exchange for a Ukrainian pause on striking Russian energy assets.Let’s hope Mr. Trump has at least noticed the blowback he can expect if he ever shuts off U.S. intelligence support for Ukraine. What was supposed to be unsubtle coercion of Ukraine boomeranged into a strategic and political own goal for the U.S.