The Starlink satellite internet network, operated by Musk’s SpaceX, began operating in Ukraine shortly after Russia’s full-scale invasion.
“There was an emergency request from government authorities to activate Starlink all the way to Sevastopol. The apparent intent was to sink most of the anchored Russian fleet,” Musk said on the social network X, which until recently was known as Twitter.
“If I had agreed to this request, then “SpaceX” would be directly complicit in a major war and the escalation of the conflict,” the technology magnate explained his vision.
With this post, Musk reacted to a fragment of his biography written by the American journalist Walter Isaacson, which was published in the “Washington Post” newspaper.
The excerpt claims, among other things, that Musk ordered his engineers to disable the Starlink coverage 100 kilometers from the Crimean coast.
In a post on the “X” platform, Musk rejected such a version.
“The Starlink regions in question were not activated. SpaceX did not deactivate anything,” Musk claimed.
The billionaire also called for a ceasefire in the Russia-Ukraine war on Thursday.
“Both sides should agree to a cease-fire. Every day that passes, more and more young Ukrainians and Russians are dying to gain or lose small pieces of land, with borders almost unchanged. It’s not worth their lives,” Musk said.
As claimed in a fragment of Aizekson’s book, in 2022 Musk gave the order to disable the Internet service system “Starlink” on the coast of the Russian-occupied Crimea, in order to disrupt the Ukrainian attack on the Russian navy in Sevastopol.
In the book, which will go on sale on September 12, Aizekson writes that Musk allegedly gave a secret order to his company’s engineers to disable the satellite communication network “Starlink” in order to disrupt the planned attack by the Ukrainians on Russian ships in the port of Sevastopol using remote-controlled underwater missiles.
The journalist claims that Ukrainian underwater missiles “came close to the Russian fleet” but then “washed ashore” without causing any damage.
The author of the book writes that Musk did it out of fear of a retaliatory strike from Russia. The founder of the company “SpaceX” is said to have contacted Russian officials and in these talks gained confidence that Russia could use nuclear weapons after such an attack.
Aizekson quotes Musk as saying that satellite communications are not for war.
“Starlink was created so that people could watch Netflix, relax, connect to the Internet at school, do peaceful work, not to carry out drone strikes,” the billionaire said.
The Ukrainians tried to convince him otherwise, but Musk did not give up.
2023-09-08 12:12:47
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