SpaceX chief Elon Musk clarified on Friday as to why he refused to entertain an “emergency request” from Kiyv to activate Starlink over Crimea during the Russia-Ukraine war.
Starlink satellite is a global network of over 4,000 satellites that serves more than 50 countries. It has worked as the connective tissue for crucial battlefield communications for Kiyv amid the Russia-Ukraine war.
Reacting to the claims made in his biography by American writer Walter Isaacson, Musk wrote on Twitter — X — that an emergency request was received from Ukraine to activate Starlink to the Russian Navy hotspot Sevastapool, but he refused because he did not want SpaceX to be complicit in a major act of war.
Musk wrote, “There was an emergency request from government authorities to activate Starlink all the way to Sevastopol. The obvious intent being to sink most of the Russian fleet at anchor. If I had agreed to their request, then SpaceX would be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation.”
Responding to the allegation that he covertly instructed his engineers to deactivate Starlink’s satellite communications network over Sevastopol during a major Ukrainian offensive, Musk said, “SpaceX did not deactivate anything because it had not been activated in those regions in the first place.”
There was an emergency request from government authorities to activate Starlink all the way to Sevastopol.
The obvious intent being to sink most of the Russian fleet at anchor.
If I had agreed to their request, then SpaceX would be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and…
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 7, 2023
Responding to Musk’s clarification, Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of Russia Dmitry Medvedev tweeted: “If what Isaacson has written in his book is true, then it looks like [Elon Musk] is the last adequate mind in North America.”
Walter Isaacson, an author and journalist, in his biography of @elonmusk writes that last year the businessman shut down Starlink to prevent Ukraine’s attack on Russia’s Navy stationed in Crimea.
He was concerned about a retaliatory nuclear strike.
If what Isaacson has written…
— Dmitry Medvedev (@MedvedevRussiaE) September 7, 2023
Elon Musk earlier said that while the system had “become the connectivity backbone of Ukraine all the way up to the front lines, we are not allowing Starlink to be used for long-range drone strikes.”
