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London: A satellite speed test on a European motorway is an unusual way to check whether Donald Trump can be trusted. But the test results are impossible to ignore when they challenge everything the American president claims about the war in Ukraine.

The results also have implications for every American ally when the findings suggest the Trump administration has slowed the speed of the Starlink satellite network, and its Starshield military system, so Ukrainian targets are more exposed to Russian attacks.

Just think of the gravity of that decision. All the signs suggest the Americans made a technical change that increased civilian casualties.

Without Starlink working properly, Ukrainian drones lost the power to intercept Russian drones. The rational conclusion is that civilians died from a decision in Washington DC to limit the use of an American network.

The speed test was undertaken in recent days by Ukrainian personnel who took Starlink equipment into a nearby European Union country to check whether they would get the same slow speeds they experienced when using the terminals in Ukraine.

The result? Starlink worked for vehicles travelling at 180km/h in Europe. In Ukraine, however, service was cut out for drones travelling at more than 161km/h.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky revealed the results to journalists on Saturday (Sunday AEDT) and explained why they mattered. When Ukrainian forces send a drone to intercept a Russian attack, he said, they “lose the drone” when it travels at a speed higher than the Starlink cap.

While they could slow the drone, of course, that would only make it harder to intercept a Russian kamikaze drone heading for an apartment building.