Starlink - Weaponized - September 2022
Musk turned off the Starlink communication terminals transferred to the Armed Forces of Ukraine after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reacted negatively to the businessman's plan to peacefully resolve the conflict in the country. The New Yorker wrote about it 22 August 2023. In October 2022, Musk tweeted that he doubted the possibility of a Ukrainian victory in the event of a full-scale war with Russia, and called on the parties to peace. He offered his vision of the conflict settlement. The plan called for a "re-vote" in the Donbass "under UN supervision ", the preservation of Crimea "a formal part of Russia, as it had been since 1783 (before Khrushchev's mistake)", guarantees of Crimea's water supply, and Ukraine's neutral status. In response, Zelensky accused him of sympathizing with Moscow .
According to the publication, after that, Musk "showed who he supports on the battlefield." Once, Ukrainian forces in the southern direction of the front suddenly found themselves without communication, the article says. "We were very close to the line of contact and crossed this border. After that, Starlink stopped working. The consequences were immediate. Communication was interrupted, the units were isolated,” a soldier named Nikolai told the newspaper. According to the military, the Ukrainian commanders had to move around the battlefield in order to catch the radio band and restore communication. As a result of the shutdown of Starlink, chaos began in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, he specified.
In late 2022 Musk learned that Ukrainian forces planned on using Starlink to guide six explosive-laden naval drones to attack Russia’s Black Sea Fleet on the Crimean coastline.
The Pentagon considered it important that the Ukrainian military have access to satellite communications, but did not comment on reports of Elon Musk's refusal to provide the Armed Forces of Ukraine with access to his Starlink service in the Crimea region. This position was stated 01 August 2023 at a regular briefing for journalists by US Department of Defense spokesman Patrick Ryder.
"I have nothing to say on this particular issue. In general, we have talked in the past about the importance of satellite communications for Ukrainians. We will continue to talk with Ukrainians about this and continue to provide them with the necessary support. But regarding Musk and Ukraine, I would recommend contacting directly to him," the Pentagon spokesman said, commenting on the publication in The New York Times at the request of the journalist.
In the mentioned material, citing sources, it was alleged that Musk denied the Ukrainian military their request to turn on his Starlink satellite communications network in the Crimea region. The publication recalled that in 2022, the businessman unveiled his peace plan, which allegedly "looked like meeting Russian interests." As a first step, he then proposed holding UN-supervised referendums in the territories that had recently joined Russia. Musk had previously noted that the Starlink network is necessary to provide communications in Ukraine, but should not be used for escalation that could lead to a third world war.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk spoke to Russia’s ambassador to the US, Anatoly Antonov, before making the decision to switch off his Starlink satellite internet service in Crimea in September 2022 to thwart a Ukrainian attack on the peninsula, the Washington Post reported 07 September 2023. The paper published more details about Musk cutting Starlink coverage to prevent a Ukrainian seaborne drone strike on the Russian Black Sea Fleet base in Sevastopol. The events that occurred have been described in a biography of the tech billionaire by historian Walter Isaacson that is due to hit shelves next week. With Kiev’s forces poised to launch their attack, Musk spoke "to the Russian ambassador to the United States... (who) had explicitly told him that a Ukrainian attack on Crimea would lead to a nuclear response,” Crimea supposedly became part of Russia after a referendum in 2014. Isaacson said in his book. “In later conversations with a few other people, he [Musk] seemed to imply that he had spoken directly to [Russian] President Vladimir Putin, but to me he said his communications had gone through the ambassador,” the historian wrote.
According to Isaacson, Musk concluded that “allowing the use of Starlink for the attack… could be a disaster for the world.” He therefore took matters into his own hands and “secretly told his engineers to turn off coverage within 100 kilometers of the Crimean coast. As a result, when the Ukrainian drone subs got near the Russian fleet in Sevastopol, they lost connectivity and washed ashore harmlessly”, according to Isaacson.
Musk started receiving “frantic” calls from Kiev as soon as the Ukrainians realized that the satellite service wasn’t working. Ukrainian Digital Transformation Minister Mikhail Fedorov then begged Musk to turn the signal back on via text messages, outlining the capabilities of the sea drones. They tried to explain to the billionaire that the drones were “crucial to their fight for freedom,” but Musk still refused to switch Starlink back on. He argued that Ukraine was “going too far and inviting strategic defeat” by targeting Crimea, Isaacson wrote. The historian also claimed that Musk had discussed the situation with US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley, explaining to them that he didn’t intend for Starlink to be used for offensive purposes.
The billionaire told the story differently. In a series of posts 07 September 2023 on X (formerly Twitter), saying that Starlink was never active around Crimea and that he simply turned down Ukrainian calls to provide coverage in the area to enable a Ukrainian strike on the Russian naval fleet . “There was an emergency request from government authorities to activate Starlink all the way to Sevastopol,” he wrote. “The obvious intent being to sink most of the Russian fleet at anchor.... The Starlink regions in question were not activated. SpaceX did not deactivate anything," Musk said, via X, adding that, "If I had agreed to their request, then SpaceX would be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation." The owner of the socia media platform's comments were in response to excerpts cited in US media from the upcoming Musk biography authored by writer Walter Isaacson.
In Russia, what happened was mostly perceived as evidence that in the current American elite - incompetent and obsessed with maintaining global hegemony at any cost - there are people who retain common sense and an adequate perception of reality. It was in this vein that Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council and former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev commented on the news. Medvedev, described Musk as “the last adequate mind in North America” for preventing a strike on Crimea.
However, perhaps even more important for Russia - and for the whole world - is another aspect of this story. After all, this is what the situation looks like if it is cleared of emotional assessments: a major American businessman consciously and actively sabotaged the policy of his state and its direct orders in a critical area. Moreover, we can add that the brainchild of the entrepreneur was created solely due to the fact that this very state at one time poured into his business not only huge financial resources, but also colossal scientific, technological and production developments in the relevant - space - field. And it stood to reason that Starlink would serve government policies and needs at the snap of a finger. Instead, it turned out that Musk has his own opinion.
Russian commentator Irina Alksnis offered more convoluted view, plaving the matter within the context of the long awaited collapse of decadent Western Burgeois capitalism " ... this is what the situation looks like if it is cleared of emotional assessments: a major American businessman consciously and actively sabotaged the policy of his state and its direct orders in a critical area. Moreover, we can add that the brainchild of the entrepreneur was created solely due to the fact that this very state at one time poured into his business not only huge financial resources, but also colossal scientific, technological and production developments in the relevant - space - field. And it stood to reason that Starlink would serve government policies and needs at the snap of a finger. Instead, it turned out that Musk has his own opinion,
"Of course, what happened reflected the deepening ideological and political division within the United States....
"... the American government has been struggling to solve this problem for a long time, but a breakthrough is still not in sight. At the same time, Russia successfully coped with a similar challenge, launching its own military-industrial complex at full capacity, both by increasing the production of decades-old proven “oldies” and by mastering qualitatively new competencies (for example, mass production of drones).
'If we consider Musk’s “rebellion” from this perspective, then in it the ideological and political differences between the entrepreneur and the current administration fade into the background. At the forefront is the efficiency of the state, the efficiency of its management system, the ability of that very “government” to force subordinate structures (and Starlink and Elon Musk, despite their formally independent and commercial status, are also them) to do what is ordered."
Musk “committed” and “enabled evil” by refusing to allow a Ukrainian drone attack on Crimea last year, Mikhail Podoliak, a senior aide to President Vladimir Zelensky, stated on 07 September 2023. Musk maintains that helping Kiev carry out the strike would have made his company “complicit in a major act of war.” Podoliak wrote on Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) platform on 07 September 2023. “Sometimes a mistake is much more than just a mistake. 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,” he continued. “As a result, civilians, children are being killed. This is the price of a cocktail of ignorance and big ego. However, the question still remains: why do some people so desperately want to defend war criminals and their desire to commit murder? And do they now realize that they are committing evil and encouraging evil?”
The Pentagon did not respond directly. It said it was "aware of the coverage and interest and in this topic," but that for "operational security" reasons it would not be issuing further details.
Musk, meanwhile, also reiterated a prior call of his for both sides to agree to a truce, saying the conflict was becoming stagnant and futile. "Every day that passes, more Ukrainian and Russian youth die to gain and lose small pieces of land, with borders barely changing. This is not worth their lives," he said.
After the scuppered attack, Musk told the Pentagon that he would no longer provide Starlink terminals to Ukraine. While he reversed course shortly afterwards amid a backlash from Kiev and the US media, he since convinced Washington and the EU to pay for some of their upkeep, while restricting their use near Russia’s borders.
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