‘Inaccurate': Starlink Denies Elon Musk Ordered 2022 Ukraine Shutdown
A report claimed Elon Musk shut down Starlink service during Ukraine's 2022 counteroffensive in Kherson in fear of a nuclear response from Russia.
Elon Musk's satellite service company, Starlink, denied a report by Reuters that claimed that the tech mogul had ordered a shutdown of services during a critical phase of Ukraine's counteroffensive against Russian forces in late September 2022.
Citing three people familiar with the matter, Reuters reported that Musk told a senior engineer at the California offices of SpaceX, which controls Starlink, to cut coverage in areas including Kherson, a strategic region that Ukraine was trying to reclaim.
However, the spokesperson did not provide answers to several questions regarding the incident, Starlink's role in the Ukraine war, or any other relevant details. The office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the country's Ministry of Defence also didn't respond to requests for comment.
This came after a Starlink outage on Friday that heavily affected battlefield communications in Ukraine. A senior commander said Starlink systems used by the Ukrainian forces were down for over 2.5 hours overnight. Several combat operations had to be postponed as a result of the outage, as per a Ukrainian drone commander.
Ukraine's military depends significantly on thousands of SpaceX Starlink terminals for battlefield communications and certain drone operations, as these devices have consistently withstood espionage attempts and signal jamming during the three and a half years of Russia's invasion.
How Elon Musk's Shutdown Order Affected Ukraine
According to the Reuters report, Elon Musk's directive caused a communications blackout that affected Ukrainian drone operations, artillery targeting and frontline coordination. Ukrainian military officials and advisors said the blackout caused soldiers to panic and long-range artillery units struggled to aim their fire.
As a result, Ukrainian troops failed to surround a Russian position in the town of Beryslav, east of Kherson. 'The encirclement stalled entirely. It failed," said a military official. However, Ukraine eventually reclaimed Beryslav and Kherson city.
Sources familiar with Elon Musk's decision said, as per the report, that it stemmed from his concerns that a Ukrainian advance could provoke nuclear retaliation from Moscow. The decision shocked some Starlink employees and effectively reshaped the front line of the fighting, enabling Musk to take 'the outcome of a war into his own hands," a source said.
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