2023-09-08 16:08:28
Musk: Ukrainian attack on Russian fleet preventedTech billionaire Elon Musk says he prevented a Ukrainian attack on the Russian Black Sea fleet in the port city of Sevastopol. Musk wrote on his online platform X (formerly Twitter) on Friday night that he had rejected a request from the Ukrainian government to activate his company SpaceX’s Starlink satellite communications system in the region.
“Their apparent intention was to sink most of the anchored fleet,” he wrote. SpaceX would have been involved in a major act of war and escalation, Musk explained his decision.
Musk made the comments after publishing an excerpt from the tech entrepreneur’s upcoming biography in der „Washington Post“. After conversations with Musk, his biographer Walter Isaacson wrote that Musk had the Starlink coverage around Crimea switched off in September 2022 so that Ukrainian underwater drones loaded with explosives could not reach their target. Musk contradicted this representation from the book published on Tuesday at X. “The Starlink regions in question were not activated. SpaceX has not disabled anything,” he wrote.
The six Ukrainian underwater drones went off course without the Starlink connection, according to the excerpt in the Washington Post. They landed on the bank without causing any damage. Musk feared that Russia could respond to such an attack with nuclear weapons. The news channel CNN also reported on the incident based on the biography.
Musk is the boss and large shareholder of the space company SpaceX, which operates the Starlink system for internet connections from space. After the Russian attack on Ukraine in February, SpaceX provided Ukraine with numerous Starlink terminals and did not charge any fees for their operation. They played a key role in ensuring that the country was able to coordinate its defense while the Russian military targeted its communications infrastructure.
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