Elon Musk ordered shutdown of Starlink satellite service in Sept 2022 as Ukraine retook territory from Russia
According to three people familiar with the command, Musk told a senior engineer at the California offices of SpaceX, the Musk venture that controls Starlink, to cut coverage in areas including Kherson, a strategic region north of the Black Sea that Ukraine was trying to reclaim.
'We have to do this,' Michael Nicolls, the Starlink engineer, told colleagues upon receiving the order, one of these people said. Staffers complied, the three people told Reuters, deactivating at least a hundred Starlink terminals, their hexagon-shaped cells going dark on an internal map of the company's coverage. The move also affected other areas seized by Russia, including some of Donetsk province further east.
Upon Musk's order, Ukrainian troops suddenly faced a communications blackout, according to a Ukrainian military official, an advisor to the armed forces, and two others who experienced Starlink failure near the front lines. Soldiers panicked, drones surveilling Russian forces went dark, and long-range artillery units, reliant on Starlink to aim their fire, struggled to hit targets.
As a result, the Ukrainian military official and the military advisor said, troops failed to surround a Russian position in the town of Beryslav, east of Kherson, the administrative center of the region of the same name. 'The encirclement stalled entirely,' said the military official in an interview. 'It failed.'
Ultimately, Ukraine's counteroffensive succeeded in reclaiming Beryslav, the city of Kherson and some additional territory Russia had occupied. But Musk's order, which hasn't previously been reported, is the first known instance of the billionaire actively shutting off Starlink coverage over a battlefield during the conflict. 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,' another one of the three people said.
The account of the command counters Musk's narrative of how he has handled Starlink service in Ukraine amid the war. As recently as March, in a post on X, his social media site, Musk wrote: 'We would never do such a thing.'
Musk and Nicolls didn't respond to requests from Reuters for comment.
A SpaceX spokesperson said by email that the news agency's reporting is 'inaccurate' and referred reporters to an X post earlier this year in which the company said: 'Starlink is fully committed to providing service to Ukraine.' The spokesperson didn't specify any inaccuracies in this report or answer a lengthy list of questions regarding the incident, Starlink's role in the Ukraine war, or other details regarding its business.
The office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and the country's Ministry of Defence didn't respond to requests for comment. Starlink still provides service to Ukraine, and the Ukrainian military relies on it for some connectivity. Zelenskiy as recently as this year has publicly expressed gratitude to Musk for Starlink.
It isn't clear what prompted Musk's command, when exactly he gave it, or precisely how long the outage lasted. The three people familiar with the order said they believed it stemmed from concerns Musk expressed later that Ukrainian advances could provoke nuclear retaliation from Russia. One of the people said the shutoff transpired on September 30, 2022. The two others said it was around then, but didn't recall the exact date. Some senior U.S. officials shared Musk's concerns that Russia would make good on threats to escalate, one former White House staffer told Reuters.
Musk's order was an early glimpse of the power the magnate now wields in geopolitics and global security because of Starlink, a fast-growing satellite internet service that barely existed early this decade and now provides connectivity even in remote areas of the world. Even before his brief role as financial backer and advisor to U.S. President Donald Trump, the success of Starlink – and the unrivaled connectivity it offers across the planet – had given Musk increasing influence with political leaders, governments and militaries worldwide.
Musk's sway in military affairs in Washington and beyond – through Starlink's dominance in satellite communications and SpaceX's clout in space launches – has reached a dimension previously limited to sovereign governments, alarming some regulators and lawmakers. 'Elon Musk's current global dominance exemplifies the dangers of concentrated power in unregulated domains,' Martha Lane Fox, a member of Britain's upper house of parliament, said during a debate earlier this year. The parliamentarian is a businesswoman and former board member at Twitter, the social media site that Musk acquired in 2022 and rebranded as X.
'Its control,' Lane Fox said of Starlink, 'rests solely with Musk, allowing his whims to dictate access to vital infrastructure.' Musk's political influence, and his massive business with the U.S. federal government, are now being put to the test. Since leaving his role advising Trump, Musk has publicly feuded with the president, announced plans to create a new political party, and criticized a signature spending bill that he said will expand the budget deficit and destroy jobs. Trump, for his part, has threatened to end government contracts and subsidies for Musk's companies, including lucrative new defense projects.
Whatever the reason for Musk's decision, the shutoff over Kherson and other regions surprised some involved with the Ukraine war – from troops on the ground to U.S. military and foreign policy officials, who after Russia's full-scale invasion that February had worked to secure Starlink service for Ukrainian forces. Panicked calls by Ukrainian officials during the outage to seek information from Pentagon counterparts, five people familiar with the incident said, were met with few explanations for what could have caused it.
The U.S. Department of Defense declined to comment. Reuters couldn't determine whether White House or Pentagon officials after the shutdown had any exchanges with Musk over the outage.
The Kherson episode is distinct from an earlier report of an incident that purportedly occurred that same September, involving Crimea just to the south, and raised concerns about Musk's ability to influence the conflict in Ukraine.
In his 2023 biography of Musk, author Walter Isaacson reported that the tycoon had ordered Starlink to disable coverage in Crimea, which Russia had annexed from Ukraine after a 2014 invasion that the international community condemned as illegal. Musk, Isaacson wrote, believed a planned Ukrainian attack on Russian vessels in the Crimean port of Sevastopol could prompt nuclear retaliation. After the book was published, Musk denied a shutdown, saying that there had never been coverage in Crimea to begin with. He said he had, rather, rejected a Ukrainian request to provide service ahead of Kyiv's planned attack. Isaacson later conceded his account was flawed. A spokesperson at Isaacson's publisher declined to comment or make him available for an interview. SpaceX also said in 2023 that it had taken unspecified steps to prevent Ukraine from using Starlink for certain activities, including drone attacks. 'Our intent was never to have them use it for offensive purposes,' Gwynne Shotwell, the company's president, said at a conference in Washington in February of that year. 'There are things that we can do, and have done' to prevent it, she added, without providing further detail.
Reuters couldn't determine if the shutdown affecting Kherson was among the steps she was referring to. Shotwell didn't respond to requests for comment for this article. Following the start of the Kherson shutdown, word of an outage emerged in some media reports. At the time, it wasn't clear to those who lost connectivity whether a technical problem, sabotage or some other factor was responsible. Early in the war, Russia had orchestrated a large cyberattack that disrupted service of another satellite operator, Western officials have said, creating suspicions around any outage and leaving a void quickly filled by Starlink. Russia has denied it conducts offensive cyberattacks.
As of April 2025, according to Ukrainian government social media posts, Kyiv has received more than 50,000 Starlink terminals. Easily transported and deployed, the pizza-box-sized devices communicate with thousands of SpaceX satellites now circling the globe. An initial batch of terminals was provided to Ukraine by SpaceX itself. Further terminals have arrived from donors including Poland, the United States and Germany.
This account of the outage, and the growing dependence on Musk by governments and militaries worldwide, is based on interviews with more than three dozen people with knowledge of SpaceX's operations and the company's technology. These people included current and former employees, U.S. and European military officials, and senior politicians and diplomats. The reporting puts a spotlight on Musk's control of services now critical to countries including the U.S., which has about $22 billion in contracts with SpaceX. Underscoring the point himself during his recent dispute with Trump, Musk threatened to decommission a SpaceX spacecraft the U.S. now relies upon to transport astronauts and critical cargo.
His threat, later retracted, unnerved attorneys at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, who felt forced to explore whether Musk's warning could be considered a notice of contract termination, according to two people familiar with the matter. NASA didn't respond to Reuters' requests for comment.
'There needs to be some contractual assurances' that Musk won't cut off services to the U.S. government, said Lori Garver, a former deputy administrator of the agency. 'We will need to consider how comfortable the U.S. will be at putting SpaceX in the critical path on national security.'
As countries increasingly rely on tech companies for everything from cyber defense to data storage, the question of dependence on one or a few dominant service providers will apply to other nations, too. 'Governments have to think through what that means,' said Marcus Willett, former deputy head of Britain's Government Communications Headquarters intelligence agency and now a senior adviser to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based think tank.
SpaceX is the first company to establish an extensive network of communication satellites in low-Earth orbit, a region of space that is closer to the planet than areas where such satellites historically reside. The proximity of satellites that now make up the company's constellation allows Starlink to offer space-based wireless connectivity that is faster than any previously available. Starlink on Thursday suffered a rare global outage of several hours, the company said, because of an internal software problem. A Ukrainian military commander in a social media post said 'Starlink is down across the entire front,' updating the post two and a half hours later to say connectivity had returned.
With more than 7,900 satellites now in orbit, SpaceX has become the world's largest satellite operator. Its devices, which relay signals among each other to create a network that communicates with the ground, account for about two-thirds of all active satellites in space, according to Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Center for Astrophysics, Harvard & Smithsonian. Starlink began rolling out service in 2020 and now has more than six million customers in over 140 countries, territories and markets, according to a June Starlink social media post. Novaspace, a consulting firm near Paris, estimates that Starlink in 2025 will generate about $9.8 billion in revenue for SpaceX, or about 60% of the company's income. SpaceX is privately held and doesn't disclose financial information, but Musk recently said he expects the rocket company to post revenues of about $15.5 billion this year.
Rivals are scrambling to get in on the market. OneWeb, a European service owned by Eutelsat, a French company, is the furthest along, boasting about 650 satellites in low-Earth orbit. Amazon this year launched its first satellites for Project Kuiper, a $10 billion effort to compete. China is developing multiple networks, including a state-backed venture known as SpaceSail.
Still, Starlink has made much of its first-mover advantage. Its terminals, priced as low as a few hundred dollars for standard models, are known for being affordable and easy to use. 'There is no existing system right now to replace Starlink,' said Grace Khanuja, an analyst at Novaspace, the consultancy near Paris.
Compared to the geostationary satellites historically used for communications, the sheer number of SpaceX satellites helps make Starlink less vulnerable to jamming and attacks. Its far reach makes it valuable in remote and hostile terrain – from battlefields to airspace to high seas. In Ukraine, it has facilitated activities including communications, intelligence and drone piloting.
Some Western militaries not engaged in conflict are also using the service. Britain's armed forces, for instance, three years ago began using Starlink for 'welfare purposes,' including personal communications for troops, the Ministry of Defence said in response to a freedom of information request. The ministry said it has fewer than 1,000 Starlink terminals and doesn't employ them for sensitive military communications. Spain's navy is also using Starlink, but only for recreation and leisure of troops, a spokesperson said.
'That will change,' said Chris Moore, a retired air vice-marshal in the British military, speaking about high-speed space-based connectivity. Moore also worked as a OneWeb executive and is now a defense industry consultant. Satellites in low-Earth orbit, he said, offer too many advantages for militaries to ignore, especially for modern developments such as drone warfare, a signature element of the Ukraine conflict.
Some leaders are leery. In Taiwan, ever wary of conflict with China, officials have expressed concern about Musk's extensive business interests on the mainland, including a major factory for Tesla, the electric vehicle company he controls. Eager for communications backups in the event of war, Taiwan is developing its own low-Earth orbit satellite network. Taiwanese officials have said the government could partner with Amazon's Kuiper, too.
Spokespersons for the Taiwanese government said it welcomes international satellite providers but that Starlink hasn't applied for a license in Taiwan. They didn't respond to questions about Taipei's relationship with Musk.
In Italy, the government is evaluating whether to employ Starlink for secure communications among the government, defense and other officials. But some officials, including President Sergio Mattarella, remain unconvinced by SpaceX's assurances that its service would be secure and free from meddling by Musk. 'More than Musk's word, we need assurances that we can't be shut down, and especially that he can't access the data,' said a person familiar with the views of the president, who is an influential figure with the armed forces.
Poland, a major donor to Ukraine, told Reuters it employs Starlink as well as other military and commercial satellite systems. A mix of providers, Polish officials have said, offers the most security, even if at high cost.
'In peacetime, you want the best product at the best price,' Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said in response to a question from Reuters at a press conference in April. 'In wartime, you want redundancy. You want security. You want duplicated systems, so that if one fails, you can still use the other.'
Even before the conflict began, documents reviewed by Reuters show, SpaceX had already been in discussions with the U.S. government about providing Starlink in Ukraine. Rollout began after Russian troops crossed the border on February 24, 2022.
Two days later, Mykhailo Fedorov, a deputy prime minister in Ukraine, requested Musk's help. 'We ask you to provide Ukraine with Starlink stations,' he wrote on Twitter.
Musk responded in 10 hours. 'Starlink service is now active in Ukraine,' he tweeted. 'More terminals en route.' Poland was also instrumental in the early days of the war, shipping thousands of terminals to Ukraine shortly after the invasion. Warsaw this year said it has purchased about 25,000 Starlink terminals for the effort – roughly half the total now in Ukraine – and that it is paying the subscription costs to keep them connected. So far, it has spentabout $89 million on Starlink for Ukraine.
The equipment has made a critical difference for Ukraine.
Day-to-day bureaucracy has also benefited. Early in the conflict, Ukraine stored state data in the cloud and relied on Starlink to access it, helping keep some government operations running. 'We wouldn't be anywhere without Starlink,' said Vadym Prystaiko, Ukraine's ambassador to Britain until 2023. 'The whole state was preserved.'
On the battlefield, Ukraine quickly deployed Starlink to enable front-line troops to communicate with commanders. The service also allowed drone operators to transmit surveillance video streams and locate and attack Russian targets. Reuters couldn't establish just when such attacks may have become a concern for Musk or SpaceX.
By September 2022, a major Ukrainian counteroffensive was underway. Kyiv's forces were pushing back into territories, including Kherson, that Russia had captured. The drive threatened Russian supply lines, prompting Moscow to threaten the West, including oblique references to Starlink.
That month, in a statement to the United Nations, Russia noted the use of 'elements of civilian, including commercial, infrastructure in outer space for military purposes.' It warned that 'quasi-civilian infrastructure may become a legitimate target for retaliation.'
It isn't clear whether Russia has tried to attack any Starlink facilities. Musk has said, however, that Moscow has repeatedly sought to block its connectivity. 'SpaceX is spending significant resources combating Russian jamming efforts,' Musk wrote on X last year. 'This is a tough problem.'
The Kremlin declined to comment on whether it has sought to interfere with Starlink. The Ministry of Defence didn't respond to a request for comment. Starlink isn't licensed for either civilian or military use in Russia. As Ukraine's counterattack intensified, Russian President Vladimir Putin on September 21, 2022, ordered a partial mobilization of reservists, Russia's first since World War II. He also threatened to use nuclear weapons if Russia's own 'territorial integrity' were at risk.
Around this time, Musk engaged in weeks of backchannel conversations with senior officials in the administration of President Joe Biden, according to three former U.S. government officials and one of the people familiar with Musk's order to stop service. During those conversations, the former White House staffer told Reuters, U.S. intelligence and security officials expressed concern that Putin could follow through on his threats. Musk, this person added, worried too, and asked U.S. officials if they knew where and how Ukraine used Starlink on the battlefield.
Soon after, he ordered the shutdown.
Reuters couldn't ascertain the full geographic extent of the outage, but the three people familiar with the stoppage said that it covered regions that had recently been taken by Russia. Starlink coverage prior to the order, they said, had been active up to what had been Ukraine's border with Russia before the full-scale invasion.
Taras Tymochko, a Ukrainian military signals specialist stationed in the Kherson region at the time, said an outage disrupted communications for troops, including colleagues on the front, for several hours. 'If you were using Starlink to provide surveillance of the front line, you pretty much would be blind,' said Tymochko, who is now a consultant to Come Back Alive, a non-governmental organization that procures military equipment for Ukraine's armed forces.
Maryna Tsirkun, a drone expert at Aerorozvidka, an aerial reconnaissance organization that works closely with the Ukrainian military, was also in southern Ukraine at the time. Starlink signals failed as Ukrainian troops began to push toward terrain seized by Russia, she told Reuters. 'When we started to proceed there was not a connection,' she said. The outage she and colleagues experienced lasted several days.
On October 3, Musk angered Zelenskiy and other Ukrainian officials by tweeting a suggestion that locals in regions annexed by Russia vote on whether they should remain a part of Ukraine. A day later, Musk tweeted his concern about the conflict spiraling. 'I still very much support Ukraine,' he tweeted, 'but am convinced that massive escalation of the war will cause great harm to Ukraine and possibly the world.'
Three days later, following one media report about a Starlink outage, Musk tweeted that 'what's happening on the battlefield, that's classified.' He added that SpaceX by the end of 2022 was on track to spend $100 million on Ukraine. Although the Polish and U.S. governments by then had begun donations of their own, the billionaire complained about the cost of the equipment and services SpaceX was providing.
SpaceX 'cannot fund the existing system indefinitely,' Musk wrote in a mid-October post. The next day, in another tweet, he reversed course. 'To hell with it,' he wrote, 'we'll just keep funding Ukraine govt for free.'
After the outage, Kyiv worked to charm Musk. In November 2022, Fedorov, the government minister, publicly expressed trust in the service. Months later – just after Shotwell, the SpaceX president, said the company had taken steps to prevent Ukraine from using Starlink for drone attacks – Fedorov in an interview with a Ukrainian news site recognized Starlink's ability to 'geofence' coverage, selectively limiting signals in some areas.
By February 2023, however, Starlink was fully functional in Ukraine, he said. 'All the Starlink terminals in Ukraine work properly,' Fedorov told Ukrainska Pravda, the news site. Fedorov, who recently assumed the title of first deputy prime minister, didn't respond to a request for comment about Ukraine's use of Starlink in the war. In mid-2023, the U.S. Department of Defense signed an agreement with SpaceX to pay for Starlink coverage in Ukraine. Terms of the contract weren't disclosed, but Quilty Space, a Florida-based research firm, said the Pentagon has an ongoing $537 million agreement with SpaceX to provide satellite communications to Ukraine. It's not clear whether SpaceX is still footing the bill for any equipment or connectivity.
As the war has evolved, so has Ukraine's use of Musk's technology.
Ukrainian drone specialists and Prystaiko, the former ambassador to Britain, said some attack devices, including maritime and bomber drones, now have Starlink antennas fitted to them. The antennas, in the case of sea drones, help operators guide the devices and view video feeds to classify targets, said Sidharth Kaushal, a senior research fellow at Royal United Services Institute, a London-based defense think tank.
It's uncertain whether such use contravenes SpaceX's desire that Starlink not be employed for offense.
Ukraine continues to explore alternatives that could complement or back up Starlink if the service became unavailable, a senior government official told Reuters. Ukraine's government has expressed interest in European satellite projects, European Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier told Reuters. That includes GOVSATCOM, an EU project to pool satellite resources from member states and industry to provide services to governments, he said.
Privately, though, some Ukrainian officials say the existing alternatives to Starlink have limitations. 'It takes time, it takes money,' the senior government official told Reuters. With Starlink, he added, 'we have a working system.'
Musk himself has boasted of Starlink's importance to Kyiv. 'My Starlink system is the backbone of the Ukrainian army,' he wrote on X in March. 'Their entire front line would collapse if I turned it off.'
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According to investigators, in this case, the designated authority for authorisation was Prabhakar Rao, and the review committee comprising the Chief Secretary, Secretary of the General Administration Department and the Law Secretary followed his lead. • The allegations of illegal phone tapping first surfaced on March 10, 2024, when an Additional Superintendent of Police of the SIB lodged a complaint at Hyderabad's Punjagutta police station, accusing DSP Praneeth Rao of using illegal means to gather intelligence and then destroying the evidence. Do You Know: • In the era of fixed-line phones, mechanical exchanges would link circuits together to route the audio signal from the call. When exchanges went digital, tapping was done through a computer. Today, when most conversations happen through mobile phones, authorities make a request to the service provider, which is bound by law to record the conversations on the given number and provide these in real time through a connected computer. • In the states, police have the powers to tap phones. At the Centre, 10 agencies are authorised to do so: Intelligence Bureau, CBI, Enforcement Directorate, Narcotics Control Bureau, Central Board of Direct Taxes, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, National Investigation Agency, R&AW, Directorate of Signal Intelligence, and the Delhi Police Commissioner. Tapping by any other agency would be considered illegal. Phone tapping in India is governed by the The Indian Telegraph Act, 1885. • Section 5(2) says that 'on the occurrence of any public emergency, or in the interest of the public safety', phone tapping can be done by the Centre or states if they are satisfied it is necessary in the interest of 'public safety', 'sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States or public order or for preventing incitement to the commission of an offence'. • Rule 419A of the Indian Telegraph (Amendment) Rules, 2007, says phone tapping orders 'shall not be issued except by an order made by the Secretary to the Government of India in the Ministry of Home Affairs in the case of Government of India and by the Secretary to the State Government in-charge of the Home Department in the case of a State Government'. The order has to conveyed to the service provider in writing; only then can the tapping begin. Other Important Articles Covering the same topic: 📍Telangana phone tapping case: 2 more senior police officers held IN PARLIAMENT Carriage of Goods by Sea Bill clears House Syllabus: Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international importance. Mains Examination: General Studies II: Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation. What's the ongoing story: Rajya Sabha Wednesday passed the Carriage of Goods by Sea Bill, 2025, by voice vote, amidst protests by the members of the Opposition demanding a discussion on the Special Intensive Revision(SIR) of electoral rolls currently underway in poll-bound Bihar. Key Points to Ponder: • The Carriage of Goods by Sea Bill, 2025-know its key features • India's Maritime Sector-what you about the same? • The Carriage of Goods by Sea Bill, 2025 seeks to replace which pre independence legislation? • What is the significance of replacing the Indian Carriage of Goods by Sea Act, 1925 with the new Bill? Key Takeaways: • The House was adjourned for the day, just half an hour after the afternoon proceedings began, soon after the Carriage of Goods by Sea Bill was passed. • When the members of the Opposition tried to raise a point of order, the Chair, Bhubaneswar Kalita, said he would allow a point of order only when there was order in the house. He then asked all the members to return to their seats. • Lok Sabha passed the Bill, which replaces the 1925 Indian Carriage of Goods by Sea Act, in March this year. The Bill aligns India's maritime law with international conventions and seeks to modernise provisions governing the transport of goods by sea. • The Bill, which replaces the 1925 Indian Carriage of Goods by Sea Act, aligns India's maritime law with international conventions and seeks to modernise provisions governing the transport of goods by sea. Do You Know: • The Carriage of Goods by Sea Bill, 2024 was introduced in Lok Sabha on August 9, 2024. The Bill seeks to replace the Indian Carriage of Goods by Sea Act, 1925. The Act establishes the responsibilities, liabilities, rights, and immunities in case of goods carried from a port in India to another port in India or any other port in the world. The Act is in conformance with the International Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules of Law relating to Bills of Lading of August 1924 (Hague Rules) and subsequent amendments to it. • The Bill empowers the central government to: (i) issue directions for carrying out provisions of the Bill, and (ii) amend the schedule specifying rules applicable to bills of lading. A bill of lading refers to a document issued by a freight carrier to a shipper. It contains details such as the type, quantity, condition, and destination of goods being carried. The rules outline the responsibilities, liabilities, rights, and immunities of goods carriers. • The bill adopts the Hague-Visby Rules, a globally accepted maritime standard also followed by countries like the United Kingdom. By replacing complexity with clarity, the legislation is expected to simplify maritime trade laws, reduce litigation risks, and enhance transparency and commercial efficiency in cargo movement by sea. Other Important Articles Covering the same topic: 📍Lok Sabha passes Bill to simplify maritime regulations for shippers THE IDEAS PAGE Absence is abdication Syllabus: Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international importance. Mains Examination: General Studies II: Salient features of the Representation of People's Act. What's the ongoing story: S Y Quraishi Writes: In the wake of controversial electoral roll revision, a boycott would be an abdication and a political blunder. Key Points to Ponder: • What you know about Special Intensive Revision (SIR)? • What is the controversy about Special Intensive Revision (SIR)? • Under which provision does the Election Commission of India (ECI) conduct a 'Special Intensive Revision' (SIR) of electoral rolls? • What is the primary objective of the 'Special Intensive Revision' (SIR) of electoral rolls? • How does Special Intensive Revision (SIR) impacts the credibility of elections? • What challenges are associated with maintaining accurate and inclusive electoral rolls in India? • How the SIR of electoral rolls can affect marginalized and migrant populations in Bihar? • What is the role of the Supreme Court in overseeing election matters and its response to petitions against the SIR? Key Takeaways: S Y Quraishi Writes: • In the festival of democracy that elections represent, participation is both a right and a responsibility. Yet, from time to time, political actors withdraw from this arena, hoping that their absence will make a louder statement than their presence. • The tactic of boycotting elections — either by political parties or segments of the electorate — has become a recurring feature across democracies, old and new. But history offers a sobering lesson: Election boycotts rarely succeed. Instead, they often backfire, weakening opposition forces and strengthening incumbents. • Calls for boycotting the upcoming elections in Bihar have gained ground in recent weeks, driven by serious apprehensions about the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) ordered by the Election Commission (EC). • Critics allege that the SIR is being used as a tool for mass deletion of voter names, disproportionately affecting the poor, minorities and migrants. Reports of a lack of transparency in verification processes have fuelled public distrust. While concerns about electoral integrity must be addressed seriously — and urgently — by the EC, the call for a boycott as a political response deserves deeper scrutiny. • India, too, has witnessed its share of election boycotts — Punjab's 1992 assembly elections, for example. With the Shiromani Akali Dal boycotting, turnout plunged to as low as 13 per cent in some districts, and Beant Singh won on the votes of a tiny fraction of the electorate. The boycott handed Congress an easy victory and left democracy poorer for the lack of real competition. Do You Know: • The nomenclature 'Special Intensive Revision' (SIR) indicates that the ECI is exercising its discretionary powers under Section 21(3) of the 1950 law, which permits it to revise electoral rolls 'in such manner as it thinks fit'. For this exercise, the ECI has adopted a hybrid approach — combining door-to-door field verification that is characteristic of an intensive revision with elements of a summary revision, such as the reliance on existing electoral rolls to distribute enumeration forms. • According to the EC's June 24 order, all electors of Bihar had to submit enumeration forms by July 25 to make it to the draft roll to be published on August 1. From August 1 to September 1, the electors would have to submit documents, from a list of 11 specified by the EC in its order, to establish their eligibility. These documents would then be scrutinised and the final roll published on September 30, as per the schedule. • For those on the 2003 electoral roll, when the last intensive revision was done, the EC order says the extract of the roll would do. The 11 documents include caste certificate, matriculation/ educational certificate, passport and birth certificate, but not the widely held Aadhaar, Voter ID and ration card. Other Important Articles Covering the same topic: 📍Bihar special roll revision: Volunteers will help electors get govt documents, says EC Previous year UPSC Main Question Covering similar theme: 📍Examine the need for electoral reforms as suggested by various committees with particular reference to 'one nation – one election' principle. (2024) Nuclear dialogue, sans politics Syllabus: Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international importance. Mains Examination: General Studies II: India and its neighbourhood- relations. What's the ongoing story: Arun Prakash Writes: Since 1998, the Subcontinent has seen a few sporadic attempts at evolving confidence-building measures and nuclear risk reduction measures. But these are not enough, and a sustained dialogue is essential. Key Points to Ponder: • The 1999 Lahore MoU primarily aims what? • According to the article, what is described as not enough without sustained dialogue? • How the 80th anniversary of Hiroshima serves as a platform to reassess nuclear norms and risk in the Indo Pacific region, especially post Operation Sindoor? • 'Sustained dialogue is essential in the nuclear domain for South Asia'-discuss • How does the role of historical memory and symbolic anniversaries like Hiroshima's influences modern nuclear policy discourse in India? • In light of the article, how can renewed nuclear conversations contribute to preventing escalation in future India Pakistan crises? Key Takeaways: Arun Prakash Writes: • Lost in the thrust and parry of the parliamentary debate on Operation Sindoor were PM Narendra Modi's several references to Pakistan's 'nuclear threats' and 'nuclear blackmail'. They reflected a deliberate articulation of India's more assertive security doctrine, representing a calculated move to redefine the deterrence equation in South Asia. That India is prepared to act against terrorism regardless of Pakistan's 'nuclear bluff' is ostensibly intended to enhance India's deterrent credibility. • The three-way China-India-Pakistan nuclear relationship has created a complex web of interlocking deterrence. All three countries are modernising and expanding their nuclear arsenals and delivery systems. • Given the lack of transparency regarding nuclear arsenals and doctrines, and a marked reluctance to engage in a dialogue on measures to mitigate nuclear risk, the ongoing arms race can further destabilise the region, especially in a crisis such as Pahalgam. • August 6, the 80th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, was a reminder of the horrors of a nuclear holocaust. We need to focus on the management of this complex dynamic and on the prevention of accidental or intentional escalation. • Since 1998, the Subcontinent has seen a few sporadic attempts at evolving confidence-building measures and nuclear risk reduction measures (NRRMs), including the 1999 Lahore MoU on measures to prevent accidental or unauthorised use of nuclear weapons, the 2005 Agreement on Pre-Notification of Missile Tests, and the 2007 Agreement to Reduce Nuclear Risks. But these are not enough, and a sustained dialogue is essential. • In the context of NRRMs, serious note needs to be taken of media reports citing open-source intelligence that during Operation Sindoor, some of the Indian missiles that targeted Mushaf air base in Pakistan's Sargodha region and the Nur Khan air base near Rawalpindi had impacted in the close vicinity of either nuclear warhead storages or Pakistan's nuclear command and control nodes. Do You Know: • Hiroshima Day, observed on August 6 every year, marks the tragic anniversary of the atomic bombing of the Japanese city, Hiroshima, by the United States during World War II in 1945. • The bombing had been carried out by the B-29 bomber Enola Gay, nicknamed 'Little Boy', which exploded about 600 metres above Hiroshima, releasing an intense blast wave, high temperatures and lethal radiation, fatally killing an estimated 70,000-80,000 people instantly and about tens of thousands more dying from injuries and radiation exposure. • The city's infrastructure was destroyed, and survivors, known as Hibakusha, experienced long-term health problems and significant psychological trauma. • This year, in 2025, the day marks its 80th anniversary and will be observed on Wednesday, August 8 with this anniversary considered the last milestone event for many of them, as the number of survivors is rapidly declining, and their average age is now exceeding 86. Other Important Articles Covering the same topic: 📍Hiroshima Day 2025: Date, history, significance — all you need to know 📍Man survived Hiroshima bombing, took a train out of the city, survived Nagasaki as well; James Cameron is going to make a movie on him EXPLAINED Rise of the herbicides Syllabus: Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international importance. Mains Examination: General Studies III: Major crops-cropping patterns in various parts of the country, – different types of irrigation and irrigation systems storage, transport and marketing of agricultural produce and issues and related constraints; e-technology in the aid of farmers. What's the ongoing story: Crop protection chemicals are commonly known as 'pesticides'. These are basically substances sprayed on crops to protect against insects ('pests') that cause damage, whether directly (by feeding on them) or indirectly (by transmitting disease). Key Points to Ponder: • What is herbicide? • What is the difference between a herbicide and a pesticide? • What is cited as the primary reason for the rising demand for herbicides in India? • Which two pesticide categories are losing market growth momentum compared to herbicides? • What traditional agricultural practice's decline is influencing herbicide demand? • What is the implication of switching to herbicides in terms of labour dynamics on Indian farms? • Know the socio-economic consequences of reduced demand for manual weeding in Indian agriculture. Key Takeaways: • India's organised domestic crop protection chemicals market is valued at roughly Rs 24,500 crore. • Take the white-backed plant hopper, a pest that both feeds on rice plants and also spreads the Fiji virus disease, resulting in their stunted growth. This 'dwarfing' disease has been reported by many paddy farmers in Punjab and Haryana during the current kharif growing season. The vector insect here injects the virus while sucking the sap from mostly young plants. • But crop protection chemicals aren't limited to insecticides. They also include fungicides (to control fungal diseases such as blast and sheath blight in rice or powdery mildew and rusts in wheat) and herbicides (to kill or inhibit the growth of weeds). • The largest segment within that is insecticides (Rs 10,700 crore), followed by herbicides (Rs 8,200 crore) and fungicides (Rs 5,600 crore). As the accompanying chart shows, it is the market for herbicides that's growing at the highest rate – over 10% annually. • Much of that is controlled by multinational companies: Bayer AG (which has an estimated 15% market share), Syngenta (12%), ADAMA (10%), Corteva Agriscience (7%) and Sumitomo Chemical (6%). While Bayer is German, Corteva is from the US and Sumitomo is Japanese, the Basel (Switzerland) and Ashdod (Israel)-headquartered Syngenta and ADAMA respectively are both owned by the Chinese state-owned Sinochem Holdings Corporation. • However, the herbicide segment has Indian players, too, such as Dhanuka Agritech (estimated 6% share) and Crystal Crop Protection Ltd (CCPL: 4%). CCPL recently purchased the rights to Ethoxysulfuron, a herbicide used against broad-leaved weeds and sedges in rice and sugarcane, from Bayer AG for sales in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Southeast Asian countries. • The deal, announced in January 2025, also covered the latter's 'Sunrice' trademark for mixture products containing this active ingredient. Earlier, in December 2023, CCPL had acquired 'Gramoxone', a broad-spectrum herbicide containing the active ingredient Paraquat, from Syngenta for sale in India. Do You Know: • Weeds, unlike insect pests and disease-causing pathogens, don't directly damage or destroy crops. Instead, they compete with them for nutrients, water and sunlight. Yield losses happen because the crops are deprived of these essential resources. Besides growing at their expense, weeds sometimes even harbour pests and pathogens inflicting further harm. • Weed control has traditionally been through manual removal by hand or simple lightweight short-handled tools with flat blades such as khurpi. There are also power weeders with 3-10 horsepower engine capacity that can be run between rows of standing crops to remove weeds in and around those spaces. • Farmers generally spray insecticides and fungicides only when they physical observe and assess the pest population or disease incidence to be significant enough to impact crop yield and quality/marketability. Other Important Articles Covering the same topic: 📍Explained: Biostimulants that aid plant growth, now under the Centre's scrutiny Why Sylheti, spoken by millions in Northeast, is not a 'Bangladeshi language' Syllabus: Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international importance. Mains Examination: General Studies I:Indian culture will cover the salient aspects of Art Forms, literature and Architecture from ancient to modern times. What's the ongoing story: Amid a roiling controversy triggered by a Delhi Police letter seemingly referring to Bengali as the 'Bangladeshi national language,' a social media post by BJP leader Amit Malviya has sparked an outcry in Assam's Barak Valley. Key Points to Ponder: • What is Sylheti? • What is the history of its speakers? • Which unique script is historically associated with Sylheti, though termed 'esoteric' by some scholars? • The article highlights that Sylheti is spoken in Assam's Barak Valley and which two other Indian regions? • What is the role of mutual intelligibility in determining whether Sylheti is a language or a dialect? • Know the sociolinguistic status of Sylheti vis-à-vis Standard Bengali within Bangladesh. • Why have Malviya's comments touched a raw nerve in Assam? Key Takeaways: • In his defence of the letter, Malviya claimed it was referring to 'a set of dialects, syntax, and speech patterns that are distinctly different from the Bangla spoken in India', and gave the example of 'Sylhelti' as being 'nearly incomprehensible to Indian Bengalis'. • Sylheti is spoken on both sides of the border, in the Sylhet Division of Bangladesh as well as the Barak Valley Division of southern Assam. There is also a sizable presence of Sylheti-speakers in neighbouring Meghalaya and Tripura. • The primary argument for referring to Sylheti as a dialect of Bengali — and not a language in its own right — is mutual intelligibility, that is, speakers of both tongues understand each other. However, there is scholarly disagreement on the matter. • 'The claim of mutual intelligibility by some speakers of both Sylheti and Bengali may be more an effect of the speakers' exposure to both languages,' linguists Candide Simard, Sarah M Dopierala, and E Marie Thaut wrote in their paper 'Introducing the Sylheti language and its speakers' (2020). • 'Sylheti-speaking areas of Bangladesh and India are characterised by diglossia, where standard Bengali is the language of education and literacy and Sylheti is the vernacular variety used in everyday interactions,' the linguists wrote. • Speakers on both sides of the border nonetheless have a strong affinity to the Bengali language, and often identify as Bengali themselves. Do You Know: • Tapodhir Bhattacharjee, a former vice-chancellor of Assam University Silchar and a Bengali literary theorist, said that the primary difference between the Sylheti dialect and standardised Bengali is phonetic, while the two are almost identical in morphology and syntax. • While Bhattacharjee recognises that there was once a Sylhet-Nagri script — the existence of a unique system of writing is often seen as a marker of a language — he refers to it as an 'esoteric script'. • Historian Ashfaque Hossain refers to Sylhet as historically being 'a frontier of Bengal'. • The present-day Sylhet Division in Bangladesh, comprising the districts of Habibganj, Sunamganj, Sylhet, and Moulvibazar, was made a part of Assam soon after it was split from Bengal in 1874. • Geographically contiguous with Cachar in the Bengali-majority Barak Valley, between 1874 and 1947, Sylhet witnessed a sustained churn over the question of whether it should be a part of Assam or Bengal. 'On one side, this was a matter of Bengali versus Assamese, and on the other, Hindu versus Muslim,' Hossain wrote. • Historian Anindita Dasgupta wrote in 'Remembering Sylhet: A Forgotten Story of India's 1947 Partition', '… the Hindus of Sylhet demanded for a return to the more 'advanced' Bengal, whereas the Muslims by and large preferred to remain in Assam where its leaders, along with the Assamese Muslims, found a more powerful political voice…' • The story of Sylheti migration to parts of present-day Assam, Meghalaya and Tripura, however, is even older. Dasgupta wrote about 'Sylheti Hindu bhodrolok' who were 'economic migrants' across the region. • Malviya's claim of the dialect being 'a shorthand for the linguistic markers used to profile illegal immigrants from Bangladesh' has thus drawn strong reactions not only from the BJP's political opponents in the Barak Valley but from within the party. Other Important Articles Covering the same topic: 📍Letter from Delhi Police refers to Bangla as 'Bangladeshi language', TMC demands apology For any queries and feedback, contact Subscribe to our UPSC newsletter. Stay updated with the latest UPSC articles by joining our Telegram channel – IndianExpress UPSC Hub, and follow us on Instagram and X. Priya Kumari Shukla is a Senior Copy Editor in the Indian Express (digital). She contributes to the UPSC Section of Indian Express (digital) and started niche initiatives such as UPSC Key, UPSC Ethics Simplified, and The 360° UPSC Debate. The UPSC Key aims to assist students and aspirants in their preparation for the Civil Services and other competitive examinations. It provides valuable guidance on effective strategies for reading and comprehending newspaper content. The 360° UPSC Debate tackles a topic from all perspectives after sorting through various publications. The chosen framework for the discussion is structured in a manner that encompasses both the arguments in favour and against the topic, ensuring comprehensive coverage of many perspectives. Prior to her involvement with the Indian Express, she had affiliations with a non-governmental organisation (NGO) as well as several coaching and edutech enterprises. In her prior professional experience, she was responsible for creating and refining material in various domains, including article composition and voiceover video production. She has written in-house books on many subjects, including modern India, ancient Indian history, internal security, international relations, and the Indian economy. She has more than eight years of expertise in the field of content writing. Priya holds a Master's degree in Electronic Science from the University of Pune as well as an Executive Programme in Public Policy and Management (EPPPM) from the esteemed Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, widely recognised as one of the most prestigious business schools in India. She is also an alumni of Jamia Milia Islamia University Residential Coaching Academy (RCA). Priya has made diligent efforts to engage in research endeavours, acquiring the necessary skills to effectively examine and synthesise facts and empirical evidence prior to presenting their perspective. Priya demonstrates a strong passion for reading, particularly in the genres of classical Hindi, English, Maithili, and Marathi novels and novellas. Additionally, she possessed the distinction of being a cricket player at the national level. Qualification, Degrees / other achievements: Master's degree in Electronic Science from University of Pune and Executive Programme in Public Policy and Management (EPPPM) from Indian Institute of Management Calcutta ... Read More
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Putin says he hopes to meet Trump as White House presses for peace deal on Ukraine
Moscow: Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday he hopes to meet next week with US President Donald Trump, possibly in the United Arab Emirates. The news came on the eve of a White House deadline for Moscow to show progress toward ending the 3-year-old war in Ukraine. Putin's foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov had said earlier a summit could possibly take place next week at a venue that has been decided 'in principle.' Ushakov brushed aside the possibility of Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy joining the summit, something the White House had said Trump was ready to consider. Putin has spurned Zelenskyy's previous offers of a meeting to clinch a breakthrough. 'We propose, first of all, to focus on preparing a bilateral meeting with Trump, and we consider it most important that this meeting be successful and productive,' Ushakov said, adding that US special envoy Steve Witkoff's suggestion of a meeting including Ukraine's leader 'was not specifically discussed.' Putin made the announcement in the Kremlin after his meeting with Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the president of the UAE. There was no immediate comment Thursday from the White House and it was unclear how the announcement of the meeting would affect Trump's Friday deadline for Russia to stop the killing or face heavy economic sanctions. Asked who initiated the meeting, Putin said that didn't matter and 'both sides expressed an interest.' Speaking of the possible involvement of Zelenskyy in future talks, Putin said he has mentioned several times that he wasn't against it, adding: 'It's a possibility, but certain conditions need to be created' for it to happen. Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia's sovereign wealth fund who met with Witkoff on Wednesday, said a Trump-Putin meeting would allow Moscow to 'clearly convey its position,' and he hoped a summit would include discussions on mutually beneficial economic issues, including joint investments in areas such as rare earth elements. The meeting would be the first US-Russia summit since 2021, when former President Joe Biden met Putin in Geneva. It would be a significant milestone toward Trump's effort to end the war, although there's no guarantee it would stop the fighting since Moscow and Kyiv remain far apart on their conditions for peace. Next week is the target date for a summit, Ushakov said, while noting that such events take time to organise and no date is confirmed. The possible venue will be announced 'a little later,' he said. Months of US-led efforts have yielded no progress on stopping Russia's invasion of its neighbour. The war has killed tens of thousands of troops on both sides as well as more than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians, according to the United Nations. Western officials have repeatedly accused Putin of stalling for time in peace negotiations to allow Russian forces time to capture more Ukrainian land. Putin previously has offered no concessions and will only accept a settlement on his terms. A meeting between Putin and Trump on the war would be a departure from the Biden administration's policy of 'nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine' — a key demand from Kyiv. At the start of his second term, Trump was conciliatory toward Putin, for whom he has long shown admiration, and even echoed some of his talking points on the war. But he recently has expressed increasing exasperation with Putin, criticising the Kremlin leader for his unyielding stance on US-led peace efforts, and has threatened Moscow with new sanctions. Zelenskyy seeks European involvement Zelenskyy said he planned calls with European leaders Thursday to discuss the latest developments amid a flurry of diplomatic activity. European countries must also be involved in finding a solution to the war on their own continent, he said on Telegram. 'Ukraine is not afraid of meetings and expects the same bold approach from the Russian side. It is time to end the war,' he added. A ceasefire and long-term security guarantees are priorities in potential negotiation with Russia, he said on social media. Securing a truce, deciding a format for a summit and providing assurances for Ukraine's future protection from invasion — a consideration that must involve the US and Europe — are crucial aspects to address, Zelenskyy said. He noted that Russian strikes on civilians haven't eased off despite Trump publicly urging Putin to relent. A Russian attack Wednesday in the central Dnipro region killed four people and injured eight others, he said. Poll shows support for continuing the fight waning in Ukraine A new Gallup poll published Thursday found that Ukrainians are increasingly eager for a settlement that ends the fight against Russia's invasion. The enthusiasm for a negotiated deal is a sharp reversal from 2022 — the year the war began — when Gallup found that about three-quarters of Ukrainians wanted to keep fighting until victory. Now only about one-quarter hold that view, with support for continuing the war declining steadily across all regions and demographic groups. The findings were based on samples of 1,000 or more respondents ages 15 and older living in Ukraine. Some territories under entrenched Russian control, representing about 10 per cent of the population, were excluded from surveys conducted after 2022 due to lack of access. Since the start of the full-scale war, Russia's relentless pounding of urban areas behind the front line has killed more than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians, according to the United Nations. On the 1,000-kilometre front line snaking from northeast to southeast Ukraine, where tens of thousands of troops on both sides have died, Russia's bigger army is slowly capturing more land. In the new Gallup survey, conducted in early July, about seven in 10 Ukrainians say their country should seek to negotiate a settlement as soon as possible. Zelenskyy last month renewed his offer to meet with Putin, but his overture was rebuffed. Most Ukrainians do not expect a lasting peace anytime soon, the poll found. Only about one-quarter say it's 'very' or 'somewhat' likely that active fighting will end within the next 12 months, while about seven in 10 think it's 'somewhat' or 'very' unlikely that active fighting will be over in the next year.
