Outages of the Starlink communications system have led to a "catastrophic" loss of communication between Ukrainian troops as they battled Russian forces, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Friday.

The news triggered concerns that Elon Musk may have done something to the service in response to Ukrainian denunciations of his peace plan, but the SpaceX magnate called the newspaper's article "bad reporting."

Musk gave Ukraine thousands of Starlink terminals back in March, helping Kiev's military to "operate drones, receive vital intelligence updates and communicate with each other in areas where there are no other secure networks," as the FT described it. 

In recent weeks, as Ukrainian forces moved into territory previously controlled by Russian forces, the systems stopped working on multiple occasions. One senior Ukrainian official told the FT this led to a "catastrophic" loss of communication, including during "pitched battles." Failures were "widespread" and "prompted panicked calls from soldiers to helplines," said another official.

Roman Sinitsin, who runs a nonprofit that directs Starlinks to the Ukrainian military, said the problem may have been due to Musk's SpaceX having a block on the signal in Russian-held areas.

"It is absolutely clear to me that this is being done by representatives of Starlink to prevent the usage of their technology by Russian occupation forces," Sinitsin told the FT, urging SpaceX to coordinate more closely with the Ukrainian military.