By John R. Puri
Wednesday, October 14, 2026
This morning, we received word that Ukraine lost access
to its satellite internet service provided by SpaceX and the U.S. military.
That sudden loss of interconnection has already cost Ukrainian lives, and it
will surely cost some more.
The New York Times reports on the carnage we have helped
enable:
Ukraine said that
its military, with no warning, had lost access to a military version of
Starlink, a pillar of its battlefield communications. Kyiv relies on the
satellite internet network, known as Starshield, which is paid for by the
Pentagon. That led Ukrainian officials and analysts to surmise that the
restrictions had come from Washington, as President Trump is locked in his latest feud with Ukraine’s leadership.
At the same time,
Russia unleashed dozens of ballistic missiles in a broad attack on Ukraine’s
energy infrastructure early Wednesday, cutting power to 600,000 people in the
capital, Kyiv. It was a dark omen for a rapidly approaching winter in which
Russia is gearing up to try to push Ukraine to the breaking point as Kyiv runs
low on lifesaving air defenses.
The Trump administration is also threatening openly to cut off vital arms and intelligence
to Ukraine. When it actually did so last year after that shameful performance
in the Oval Office, Ukraine was forced to
retreat from the part of the Kursk Oblast in Russia it had seized earlier
in the war.
We may not be murdering innocent Ukrainians or destroying
their desperately needed infrastructure ourselves, but we are actively making
it easier for Russia to do so. We are helping Russia achieve its evil
war aims.
What is this all for? Apparently, we want Ukraine to stop
striking Russian diesel facilities, which directly fund Putin’s war machine
against the Ukrainian people. We want Ukraine to stop defending itself.
The administration’s apologists will say that we are not
on Russia’s side because we are not actively helping it take territory. But
that hasn’t been Russia’s strategy for years. A ubiquity of armed drones at the
war’s front, known as the “kill zone,” has frozen advances by either side. The
dividing line has hardly budged since late 2022. There will be no triumphant
conquest, as Putin originally envisioned when he told Russian invaders to pack their parade uniforms, and he knows it.
Instead, Putin’s policy now has been to relentlessly
pressure Ukraine into capitulating, into surrendering its resistance to the
assault on its sovereignty and its citizens. He seeks for Ukraine to lay down
its arms unilaterally, so that the war may come to a quick and decisive end —
even if no further territory changes hands. Absent victories on the
battlefield, Russia would win simply by pounding Ukraine into submission.
Tell me, how is that different from our current policy toward Ukraine?
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