Ukraine Condemns Musk For Switching Off Satellites In War
By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
KYIV/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – Kyiv has condemned U.S. billionaire Elon Musk after he refused to give Ukraine access to his Starlink communications satellites over Crimea to avoid complicity in a “major act of war” against Russia.
Musk suggested that doing otherwise could have prompted a nuclear response from Moscow.
The CEO of the Tesla electric car company and SpaceX rocket and spacecraft manufacturer, as well as the owner of X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, initially agreed to supply Starlink hardware to Ukraine after Russia’s full-scale invasion disrupted Ukrainian communications.
But he reportedly had second thoughts after Kyiv repelled the initial Russian assault and began counterattacking. The incident was mentioned in a newly released biography of the billionaire by Walter Isaacson, which alleges that Musk switched off Ukraine’s access to Starlink.
“How am I in this war?” Musk asked rhetorically in an interview with Isaacson. “Starlink was not meant to be involved in wars. It was so people can watch Netflix and chill and get online for school and do good peaceful things, not drone strikes.”
However, a Ukrainian official accused Musk of “committing evil” by not allowing Ukrainian drones to destroy part of the Russian military fleet via Starlink interference. He held Musk responsible for Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities from the same fleet.
UKRAINIAN DRONES
“By not allowing Ukrainian drones to destroy part of the Russian military fleet via Starlink interference, Elon Musk allowed this fleet to fire Kalibr missiles at Ukrainian cities. As a result, civilians and children are being killed,” he wrote on X.
Musk clarified there had been “an emergency request from government authorities to activate Starlink all the way to Sevastopol” in Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
“The obvious intent being to sink most of the Russian fleet at anchor,” the official said on X.
“If I had agreed to their request, then SpaceX would be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation,” he stressed in the weekend message monitored by Worthy News.
The standoff has raised questions within the European Union and the United States over how much influence a single billionaire should have on crucial communications.
Musk wants Starlink to connect the world through as many as 42,000 satellites, something critics say should be the task of governments.
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