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A senior Ukrainian presidential aide has reacted with anger after Elon Musk’s SpaceX said it had taken steps to prevent its Starlink satellite communications service from controlling drones, which are critical to Kyiv’s forces in fighting off the Russian invasion.

Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s chief operating officer, said at a conference in the US that the surprise decision had been taken because it had never been the company’s intention to allow Starlink to be used “for offensive purposes”.

That prompted an immediate complaint on Thursday morning from Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior adviser to Ukraine’s president, Volodymr Zelenskiy, who argued that Musk’s business had failed to recognise Ukraine’s right to self-defence.

Companies, Podolyak tweeted, had to decide if they were “on the side of the right to freedom” or “on the Russian Federation’s side and its ‘right’ to kill and seize territories” after its unprovoked invasion last year.

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