The CEO of Space X and the world’s wealthiest man, Elon Musk, recently said he essentially halted a Ukrainian military attack on Russia by denying them access to Starlink.
Note that Starlink is Space X’s broadband internet technology that provides internet access to many countries worldwide. The U.S. entrepreneur and billionaire says he acted to avoid assisting a large-scale act of war between Russia and Ukraine.
Musk Fears Being Linked to a Large-Scale War
Elon Musk claims, he removed Starlink’s services in the Ukraine region when the country’s government was set to attack Russia’s military equipment.
CNN was the first to report the news, citing a forthcoming biography of Musk by journalist Walter Isaacson. In Walter Isaacson’s book, Musk recounts a 2022 incident in which Ukraine attempted to attack Russian naval vessels off the Crimean coast.
According to him, the naval drones and ships that would have carried out the attack were connected to Starlink. But that satellite internet service was not (Musk later claimed on his X platform) working over the region at the time.
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
This portrays the high risk that government bodies face by relying on third-party services to implement warfare policies.
Another similar example is Wagner Group, a private military firm that took up a match of justice towards Moscow, perhaps based on the leader’s judgment. Note that Wagner Group was an ally of the Russian military before the incident.
Aside from the fact that Starlink has involved itself in countless military engagements, taking a critical role, one does not need to be a rocket scientist to question Musk’s assertion that this would amount to a “little bit of Pearl Harbor.”
Russia’s Ukraine Invasion Decision Looks like What Forced U.S. into World War 2
Notably, it is not possible that Musk’s conflict perspectives should be considered the only yardstick to determine how Starlink deployed on a combat basis.
Mykhailo Podolev, an advisor to the office of the Prime Minister of Ukraine, shared his opinion by noting that sometimes, a mistake is not just a mistake but more than that.
He asserted that in an attempt to prevent Ukrainian drones from destroying a portion of Russia’s military fleet, declining Ukraine’s access to Starlink, he helped the same enemy military fleet launch Kalibr missiles against Ukrainian cities.
I called out Musk’s moral idiocy and ignorance of Russia in his calling for a pro-Kremlin “peace” before he bought Twitter last year. Even my thread from yesterday needs an update, as he has now proudly confessed to sabotage on behalf of the Russian military. 1/4 https://t.co/4DS23W3ZLa
— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) September 8, 2023
Podolev stated that civilians and children are dying, and this is a resultant effect of ego and ignorance.’
In his words,
“the Russian warships Musk personally saved have continued to murder Ukrainian civilians. They have bombarded ports and grain stores full of food, much destined for the world’s poor. Their real blood is on Musk’s hands.”
Also, another prominent figure, former world Chess champion Garry Kasparov, who weighed in on the matter, said,
SpaceX & Starlink are marvelous, but if Musk’s delusional ‘anti-war’ agenda leads him to interfere with their services to Russia’s advantage, it’s a huge risk.
