When a company draws the line

Premise

Suppose that what you can connect to, and what you can do through that connection, is decided by a line a company draws rather than one a state draws.

This is a hypothesis to test, not a conclusion.

“The steps we took have worked”

In February 2026, Elon Musk wrote that the steps his company had taken to stop Russia’s unauthorised use of Starlink had worked.

Look at who is speaking. Who is “we” here, and who does that “we” answer to?

Here is what had happened. Starlink terminals in Ukraine that were not on a list stopped working. Ukraine’s defence minister summed it up:

Starlink terminals on the whitelist are working. The Russians’ terminals have already been blocked.

The line was drawn one terminal at a time. What mattered was not where a device happened to be, but whether it was on the list.

On the state’s side, there is a procedure

The whitelist was introduced by a resolution of Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers. How you get onto it depends on who you are.

Who	Where to register
Civilians	Administrative service centres. Free
Businesses	The Diia government portal
Military	A dedicated secure channel through DELTA. The device does not have to be entered on a unit’s books

Terminals that are not registered are cut off. The lists are updated once a day.

So there are offices to go to, separate routes for different kinds of user, no fee, and a published update schedule. In other words, it works the way public administration usually works.

On the company’s side, there is one sentence

Here is what SpaceX said:

If SpaceX obtains knowledge that a Starlink terminal is being used by a sanctioned or unauthorized party, we investigate the claim and take actions to deactivate the terminal if confirmed.

In short: learn of it, look into it, switch it off if it is confirmed.

The sentence says nothing about how to appeal, what standard is applied, or how long a decision takes. This is not a charge that something is broken. It points to an imbalance. On the state’s side, offices, a portal and an update schedule are written down. On the company’s side, there is a single sentence.

Neither document says who decides

The Ukrainian defence ministry’s announcement of the whitelist does not mention SpaceX, and it does not say who carried out the blocking. A separate announcement says the measure is being put in place in cooperation with SpaceX, and says no more.

SpaceX’s statement, for its part, does not say who decides what counts as a “sanctioned or unauthorized party”.

So a line was drawn, but neither document tells you who has the final say on where it runs.

A document’s silence does not prove that there is no final decision-maker. The claim here is narrower, and you can check it: you will not find that person or body named in either official text. A gap of that kind can be verified by opening both documents and reading them.

Seven months later, a refusal to switch on

On 22 August 2026, President Zelensky told reporters about a different decision.

Ukraine had wanted to use Starlink over Russian territory, where Starlink terminals do not work. Long-range operations would have needed that policy to change.

According to Zelensky, the answer was:

This constitutes an escalation.

Those words reach us through Zelensky. We could not get a statement from Musk himself.

So in the space of seven months, the same company moved the line twice: once by switching service off, and once by declining to switch it on.

Four days later, a medal

On 26 August 2026, Ukraine awarded Musk the Order of Freedom. The presidential decree gives two reasons: the protection of human life and freedom, and the strengthening of ties between the peoples of Ukraine and the United States.

I am not linking the two events. There is nothing to show that the medal followed from the refusal. All that can be recorded, without guessing at anyone’s motives, is the sequence: the refusal came first and the medal came after.

Starlink’s contribution is a matter of record. Since the invasion it has been used to keep Ukraine connected and to link people and equipment in the field. The medal made that contribution part of a state’s official record.

Those same four days put something else on the record as well.

Nor could a government order it

In the same remarks, Zelensky described an exchange with President Trump. Trump, he said, had told him:

Musk denied Ukraine the use of Starlink on the territory of Russia, so you kind of tricked me.

These words, too, reach us through Zelensky, by the same route as the ones above.

One country asked another country’s president for help, and he could not steer the company’s decision either. The request ended as a dispute between two heads of state.

What you can connect to decides what you can do

If you think of Starlink as just an internet service, you miss part of the picture.

Location data and video travel over the network. Software analyses them, and the results travel back over the same network to people and equipment. What you can connect to sets the limits of what you can do.

That is exactly what the August refusal touched. The question was not whether access would be granted, but how far operations would be allowed to reach.

A caution is needed here. A network that carries data is one thing; an operator using the content of that data for training is another. Claiming the second would need evidence of its own, and this piece does not have it.

Europe’s alternative is three years away

Europe is aware of this dependence and has already acted.

In 2025 the French state took 29.99% of Eutelsat through a €1.35 billion capital increase, becoming its largest shareholder. On 7 August 2026 the European Union signed the implementation agreement for IRIS²: 348 satellites, plus a further 66 for defence, security and emergency services.

Launches are due to start in 2029, and that is after the schedule was brought forward.

Europe has decided to draw its own line. It will not be able to do so for another three years.

One company, many jurisdictions

A company that does part of a state’s job does not become a state.

A state has to explain its decisions and answer for them, through elections, parliament, the courts and administrative procedure. A company can allow a connection, suspend a service and set its terms of use without answering to citizens in the same way.

The service runs across many countries at once. The decision can be taken inside one company. The consequences fall on different states and their citizens, and the laws and procedures for holding anyone to account change at every border.

The capability sits in one place; the accountability is scattered.

So where is my border?

A list of terminals in wartime is an extreme case. But the pattern is a familiar one.

Each of us is a citizen of a country and, at the same time, a user of platforms. The rules on opening and closing accounts, the regions where a service works, the terms of use: these also decide what we can actually do. If you are registered, it works; if not, you are cut off. The question is who holds the list.

In an earlier piece I wrote about digital identity wallets as a border you carry in your pocket. This piece looks at the next step: the border no longer just travels with a person, it becomes something a company can switch on and off.

A state recognises me as a citizen. But whether I can connect, compute and act may be up to a company.

So where, exactly, is my border?

This piece leaves that question open.

What this piece established

In February 2026 a whitelist came into force, and Starlink terminals in Ukraine that were not registered were blocked
The whitelist was introduced by a resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers. Civilians register for free at administrative service centres, businesses through Diia and the military through a dedicated DELTA channel. The lists are updated once a day
SpaceX said that when it learns of unauthorised use, it investigates and deactivates the terminal if the use is confirmed
The defence ministry’s whitelist announcement does not mention SpaceX, and neither official document says who has the final say on who qualifies
Starlink does not work over Russian territory, and on 22 August 2026 Zelensky relayed Musk’s refusal to change that
On 26 August 2026 Musk was awarded the Order of Freedom by presidential decree
The French state holds 29.99% of Eutelsat and is its largest shareholder. The implementation agreement for IRIS² was signed on 7 August 2026, with launches from 2029

What we could not check, and left out

The number and exact date of the resolution that introduced the whitelist. Two accounts differ, and we could not check them against an official text
Musk did comment directly on the 2023 request concerning Sevastopol, but that was a different moment and a different request, so we do not treat it as his position in August 2026
How far the United States government could direct the company through export controls or contract terms

What this piece does not claim

That the medal was awarded because of the refusal
Anything about the motives of Musk or of either president
That what Starlink carries is used for training
That companies are replacing states