Elon Musk Acknowledges Withholding Satellite Service to Thwart Ukrainian Attack

Elon Musk has acknowledged that he denied satellite tv for pc web service with a purpose to forestall a Ukrainian drone assault on a Russian naval fleet final yr, prompting an indignant response from a Ukrainian official.

The Starlink satellite tv for pc web service, which is operated by Mr. Musk’s rocket firm SpaceX, has been a digital lifeline in Ukraine because the early days of the conflict for each civilians and troopers in areas the place digital infrastructure has been worn out.

On Thursday, CNN reported that an excerpt from Walter Isaacson’s upcoming biography, “Elon Musk” stated the billionaire had ordered the deactivation of Starlink satellite tv for pc service close to the coast of Crimea final September to thwart the Ukrainian assault. The excerpt stated that Mr. Musk had conversations with a Russian official that led him to fret that an assault on Crimea might spiral right into a nuclear battle.

Later on Thursday, Mr. Musk responded on his social media platform to say that he hadn’t disabled the service however had reasonably refused to adjust to an emergency request from Ukrainian officers to allow Starlink connections to Sevastopol on the occupied Crimean peninsula. That was in impact an acknowledgment that he had made the choice to forestall a Ukrainian assault.

“The obvious intent being to sink most of the Russian fleet at anchor,” he wrote on X, previously often known as Twitter. “If I had agreed to their request, then SpaceX would be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation.”

That drew an indignant response from Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. Mr. Musk’s “interference,” he stated, had allowed Russia’s naval fleet to proceed firing cruise missiles at Ukrainian cities.

“As a result, civilians, children are being killed. This is the price of a cocktail of ignorance and big ego,” he wrote on X.

Within days of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Mr. Musk despatched Starlink terminals to the nation in response to public pleas from Ukrainian officers. Throughout the conflict, the connectivity supplied by Starlink has been pivotal for Ukraine to coordinate drone strikes and collect intelligence.

The greater than 42,000 Starlink terminals are additionally in use by hospitals, companies and help organizations throughout Ukraine.