2023-09-10 09:56:00
Ukraine spy chief says ‘all Ukrainian fronts’ use Starlink, network not active ‘for time’ in Crimea
A Ukrainian soldier disconnects his Starlink on the front line during a ceasefire announced by Russia during the Orthodox Christmas period, January 6, 2023. (Photo: Clodagh Kilcoyne/Archyde.com)
Ukraine is using Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite systems on all fronts, according to comments made by the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine (GUR), Kyrylo Budanov, as reported by Interfax Ukraine.
“They have proven themselves on the front line. You can say what you want about them [los sistemas Starlink] They are good or bad, but facts are facts. Absolutely all front lines are using them,” Budanov said Saturday, speaking at the annual European conference in Yalta organized by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation.
The Ukrainian spy chief also valued Starlink’s role in the war positively.
“They have played and continue to play an important role, because many systems use antennas, use the Starlink systems themselves, for communications, for drone transmissions, especially in terms of a remote command post, etc.”
Budanov also said that Starlink coverage “did not work for some time” in Russian-occupied Crimea, without elaborating.
“I can absolutely confirm that the Starlink systems were not working for a certain period of time near Crimea. We immediately realized that there was simply no coverage there. That’s probably all I can tell you,” Budanov said.
This after the revelations of a new biography of the owner of Starlink, written by Walter Isaacson and titled simply “Elon Musk.”
‘Elon Musk’ by Walter Isaacson. (Photo: Simon & Schuster)
According to an excerpt from the book, Musk secretly ordered his engineers to shut down his company’s Starlink satellite communications network near the coast of Crimea last year to disrupt a Ukrainian sneak attack on the Russian naval fleet.
When Ukrainian underwater drones loaded with explosives approached the Russian fleet, “they lost connectivity and were washed ashore harmlessly,” Isaacson writes.
Musk’s decision, which prompted Ukrainian officials to plead with him to turn the satellites back on, was driven by an acute fear that Russia would respond to a Ukrainian attack on Crimea with nuclear weapons, a fear stoked by Musk’s conversations with senior Russian officials, according to Isaacson.
Musk did not respond to CNN’s request for comment before publication. But he did respond to Isaacson’s book excerpt Thursday night on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter that he owns, stating that the Starlink service provided by his company SpaceX was never active in Crimea and that the Ukrainian government made a emergency request” to him to activate the service.
“There was an emergency request from government authorities to activate Starlink to Sevastopol,” Musk posted on X, the platform formally known as Twitter that he owns. Sevastopol is a port city in Crimea. “The obvious intention is to sink most of the Russian fleet at anchor. “If I had accepted their request, then SpaceX would be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and an escalation of the conflict.”
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