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October 27, 2026 / 9:54 AM EDT / CBS News
Kharkiv, Ukraine – Yulia Spichak, a 34 year-old makeup artist in Ukraine's eastern Kharkiv region, dropped her son off at an English-language lesson on Oct. 19 and sat down in a nearby park to send a selfie to her sister, Alina. Seconds later, a Russian drone slammed into the park, killing Spichak and four others, including a 1-year-old girl.
The attack came six days after Elon Musk's SpaceX throttled Ukraine's access to Starlink, which Ukraine has been using to coordinate its defenses against Russian attacks and for some of its offensive operations. In a post on X, Musk accused Ukraine of violating Starlink's terms of service by also using it for attacks on Russia.
Ukrainian officials told CBS News that the restrictions imposed without advance notice affected ground-based air defense radars and drone interceptors, hindering the military's ability to stop incoming Russian strikes.
"It's an essential part of the air defense infrastructure," Vadym Ivchenko, a Ukrainian member of parliament on the National Security, Defense and Intelligence Committee, told CBS News Monday. "I couldn't say that all other air defenses stopped working, no. But this part is quite essential for the defense of civilians in Ukraine."
CBS News obtained photographs that show Ukraine's ground-based air defense radars' Starlink connectivity dropping to .1 megabytes per second on Oct. 19, the day of the Kharkiv drone attack. That would not be enough to load a webpage, let alone power air defense radars, according to a source familiar with the technology who requested anonymity because he was not permitted to comment on the matter.
On Saturday, Ukrainian officials confirmed that Starlink's access had been restored across the country, with Musk admitting that SpaceX had throttled connectivity.
"Using Starlink, a civilian commercial service, for offensive drone strikes to kill people has never been allowed, nor should it be," Musk wrote on X. "Ukraine military violated Starlink terms of service and used it for offensive drone strikes to kill people. That loophole was closed last week."
Ukrainian officials have also complained of connectivity problems with Starshield, SpaceX's military-grade network, which runs on the same constellation of satellites as Starlink and serves as the backbone of Ukraine's drone operations. But Musk said the U.S. government controlled whatever changes happened with Starshield. SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment, and the White House referred CBS News to President Trump's comments last week, during which he told reporters that he did not order the Starlink restrictions in Ukraine.
Alina Spichak, the sister of Yulia, the make-up artist who died in the strike in Kharkiv, revisited the park where she died with CBS News on Sunday. She said the Geran-4 Russian jet-powered drone that killed her sister arrived so quickly the victims didn't hear it coming.
"I understand that everyone has their own lives and nobody wants to look at these horrors. But I believe that the whole world has to know what is happening in Ukraine, that there is a war here and we are being attacked," Alina Spichak said. "I really hope that it will end soon."
This story published first on CBS News at 9:54 a.m. on Oct. 27, 2026.
In:
Sister of Ukrainian woman who died in recent Russian attack speaks out
(03:07)
Source: CBS News · Aidan Stretch
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