Tech billionaire Elon Musk has revealed the reasons why he gave Ukraine his Starlink internet satellite technology – before turning it off in certain parts of the country a year later.
Early on into Russia 's invasion of Ukraine, Musk announced he was putting the tech over Ukraine so locals could use it in areas where Russia had destroyed the internet infrastructure. But he later blocked it in the Black Sea area near Kremlin-annexed Crimea after Ukraine planned to use it to power six small drone submarines packed with explosives to down a fleet of anchored Russian ships – although he later claimed that it was never working in the area in the first place.
Earlier today, Musk took to his own Twitter/X site to explain why he gave it to Ukraine in the first place, and also took aim at his critics who piled on him for doing so. He wrote: “Despite greatly helping Ukraine via Starlink, I was viciously attacked for stating the obvious a year ago.
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“The reason I did so was in hopes of avoiding the sacrifice of a generation of men to the trenches for nothing.” And he later added:“Starlink was *extremely* difficult to build. Thanks to an epic team and many years of hard work, it has succeeded.”
Despite the comments, Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the Ukrainian president, said Musk’s intervention led to the deaths of civilians.
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Slamming his "big ego", he said: “By not allowing Ukrainian drones to destroy part of the Russian fleet via Starlink interference, Musk allowed this fleet to fire Kalibr missiles at Ukrainian cities. As a result, civilians, and children are being killed.”
Musk came under pressure last month to introduce Starlink to Gaza after neighbouring Israel turned off the areas connectivity systems in order to target Hamas terror sites. But Musk refused to launch it to the entire area, giving it only to those who work for “internationally recognised aid organisations in Gaza,” he said.
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