Ukraine rips Elon Musk for disrupting sneak attack on Russian fleet with Starlink cutoff

WASHINGTON — A Ukrainian official slammed Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk for ordering engineers to close off Starlink’s satellite tv for pc community over Crimea final yr with a purpose to thwart a Ukrainian assault on Russian warships.

According to a brand new biography of Musk, the South African-born billionaire requested, “How am I in this war?” throughout an interview with writer Walter Isaacson.

In the early days of Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, as Western governments labored to provide Kyiv with artillery and air protection techniques, the primary of Musk’s Starlink terminals arrived within the nation. The billionaire finally soured on the association.

“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,” Musk stated, based on the guide. He informed Isaacson that he was apprehensive the Ukrainian assault on Russian vessels would provoke the Kremlin into launching a nuclear warfare. The guide, titled “Elon Musk,” will likely be launched Tuesday.

A prime aide to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy lashed out at Musk over the revelation.

“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,” Mykhailo Podolyak wrote Thursday on social media after CNN reported on a few of the particulars from Isaacson’s guide.

“As a result, civilians, children are being killed. This is the price of a cocktail of ignorance and big ego,” he added on X, which was previously often known as Twitter. Musk purchased Twitter final yr.

Crimea, a peninsula on the Black Sea that Russia illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014, is dwelling to Russia’s Black Sea warships. In the times following Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, the Black Sea fleet fired missiles on once-industrious Ukrainian coastal cities whereas imposing a devasting naval blockade.

Ukraine digital minister Mykhailo Fedorov, who had requested Musk for Starlink functionality on Twitter, posted that Starlink was “here” in Ukraine — with a picture displaying greater than two dozen bins at the back of a truck.

Starlink is SpaceX’s international community of greater than 4,000 satellites that present service to over 50 nations. In Ukraine, Starlink has labored because the connective tissue for essential battlefield communications.

Isaacson added that Musk’s determination was mentioned in a telephone name with President Joe Biden’s nationwide safety advisor, Jake Sullivan, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff U.S. Army Gen. Mark Milley.

Musk, based on Isaacson, was additionally engaged in a texting dialog with Fedorov. The official pleaded with Musk to revive Starlink’s connectivity in order that Ukrainian submarine drones might perform the assault on Russia’s warship fleet.

Musk replied that he thought Ukraine was “going too far and inviting strategic defeat,” based on Isaacson’s guide.

“I think if the Ukrainian attacks had succeeded in sinking the Russian fleet, it would have been like a mini Pearl Harbor and led to a major escalation,” Musk stated, based on Isaacson. “We did not want to be a part of that.”