GOP Rep. Fitzpatrick vows to hold any US officials who limited Starshield ‘fully accountable’

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) revealed Monday that he would be speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky about his country’s loss of access to Starshield, the military version of SpaceX’s Starlink internet, vowing to hold any U.S. officials who limited the application “fully accountable.”

In a post to social media, Fitzpatrick said he would speak with Zelensky and his team later this week to discuss Starshield, President Trump’s recent decision to waive U.S. sanctions on Russia and other matters related to Ukraine’s defense.

“I will be assuring President Zelenskyy that anyone who attempts to limit the use of Starshield for Ukraine will be fully investigated and will be held fully accountable, to include public congressional oversight hearings, and immediate harsh and punitive budget cuts to any responsible agency or agency head,” he wrote on social platform X .

Ukraine said Wednesday it was suddenly unable to use Starshield and that Starlink also had been affected, hindering its defense operations and ability to stop Russian attacks. Prior to the outage, the Trump administration had reportedly threatened to cut off intelligence and weapons support to Ukraine over Kyiv’s harsh criticism of Trump’s surprise deal to import Russian diesel.

Fitzpatrick last week called the slowdown of both Starshield and Starlink internet in Ukraine a “major problem,” saying that Congress would respond if the U.S. abandons its support for Kyiv.

Trump and Elon Musk, the owner of SpaceX, have both said that they did not cause an outage of Starlink and Starshield.

On Monday, Zelensky told a bipartisan group of U.S. senators that Ukraine still does not have full access to the satellite-based Starshield network or U.S. intelligence sharing.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), who was on the call with Zelensky, said Democratic and Republican senators are preparing to act immediately to signal their displeasure that the administration hasn’t given Kyiv the same access to intelligence and internet connectivity — crucial to operating drones and other military vehicles — as it had at the start of October.

Ukraine also has accused Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth of deliberately dragging his feet to approve the transfer of a vital batch of Patriot interceptor missiles for the country.

On Monday, Fitzpatrick said Congress “will unequivocally reaffirm that Ukraine is an indispensable ally to the United States, that Russia is a self-declared enemy of the United States, and that the United States will 100% support and defend the people of Ukraine in their fight for their own freedom against this brutal, illegal, and unprovoked Russian invasion.”

He called on the U.S. to provide any and all defensive equipment that Ukraine needs to defend itself and said Washington “must not import a single drop of Russian oil.”

“Sanctions against the Russian regime must be harsher and stronger than they’ve ever been before,” he wrote. “Each and every one of these items will be brought to the House Floor—and each and every one of these items will pass on the House Floor by an overwhelming margin.”