SpaceX Service Outages in Ukraine: Russia or the U.S.? CNN Comes with the Truth: The Case of the Ukrainian Armed Forces
SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet services have been a vital source of communication for the country’s military during the war with Russia, but as CNN exclusively reported earlier this week, SpaceX warned the Pentagon that it may stop funding the service in Ukraine unless the US military kicks in tens of millions of dollars per month, according to documents obtained by CNN.
The military may end up funding the service if it doesn’t take care of the tens of millions of dollars in monthly bills that the company is threatening to stop funding.
SpaceX declined repeated requests for comment on both the outages and their recent request to the Pentagon. A lawyer for Musk didn’t respond to a request. Defense Department spokesman Bob Ditchey told CNN, “The Department continues to work with industry to explore solutions for Ukraine’s armed forces as they repel Russia’s brutal and unprovoked aggression. We don’t have any more to add at this time.
The second person said that Starlink services had to be turned on in areas that were liberated by the Ukranian forces.
A senior Ukrainian official said that The Financial Times first reported the outages which resulted in a catastrophic loss of communication. In a tweet responding to the article, Musk didn’t dispute the outage, saying that what is happening on the battlefield is classified.
Reaction was rapid. Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelensky shot back with his own Twitter poll, asking followers if they prefer the Musk who supports Ukraine or the one who supports Russia. The ambassador of the Ukraine to Germany responded with a profanity.
While speaking at a press conference in South Texas on February10, 2022, Musk paused and looked down as he spoke.
The SpaceX Terminals Program: “This is the Time to Seek Peace in Ukraine,” Musk’s ‘The Weekend’ Tweet told CNBC
The letter also requested that the Pentagon take over funding for Ukraine’s government and military use of Starlink, which SpaceX claims would cost more than $120 million for the rest of the year and could cost close to $400 million for the next 12 months. The report elicited a torrent of feedback from social media users who either defended or denounced the move.
The documents say the cost of the terminal itself is $2500 and $1500, while the consumer model on the Starlink website is just $60 per month.
The United States Agency for International Development is said to have spent $3 million on hardware and services in Ukranian for Starlink. The largest single contributor of terminals, according to the newly obtained documents, is Poland with payment for almost 9,000 individual terminals.
Musk’s company has raised $2 billion this year and has a valuation of $127 billion, according to CNBC.
At an exclusive closed-door conference in Aspen, Colorado called ‘The Weekend’, Musk told a room full of attendees that Ukranian should seek peace because they have had recent victories.
“This is the time to do it. They don’t want to do it, that’s for sure. Someone in the room said that he said this was the time to do it. “Everyone wants to seek peace when they’re losing but they don’t want to seek peace when they’re winning. For now.
SpaceX, Podolyak, and Ukraine: The Most Critical Moments of War for the Musk, Zelensky, and Musk
Friday afternoon, a Pentagon spokesman said that the Pentagon had been in contact with Musk and his team about the funding of the Starlink product.
“SpaceX is not asking to recoup past expenses, but also cannot fund the existing system indefinitely and send several thousand more terminals that have data usage up to 100X greater than typical households. One post from Musk was from his verified account.
He said that he asked the Pentagon to pick up the bill for Starlink because he was following the advice of a Ukrainian diplomat who had responded to Musk’s Ukraine peace plan.
One Ukrainian official, Mykhailo Podolyak, an advisor to Zelensky, wrote on his tweeter account that they should be honest. The most crucial moments of war were helped byelonmusk.
Podolyak said that business has the right to its own strategies. We will come up with a solution to keep the train running. We expect that the company will provide stable connection till the end of negotiations.”
Musk frequently tweets jokes and insults and sometimes goes on unusual tangents, such as a recent series of tweets suggesting that one of his companies has begun selling its own line of fragrances. Future plans for service in Ukraine are unknown at this time.
U.S. officials have no choice but to vote for the future: a report from the European Commission on Russian Internet and its relations with Russia
The senior U.S. officials said that the Starlink funding issue had been discussed in meetings and that senior leaders were considering the matter. There have been no decisions.
Musk said the funding request the company had made to the Pentagon to start picking up the bill for satellite internet services in Ukraine has been withdrawn.
Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said Saturday that “Ukraine’s internet connectivity is too important to be left in the hands of one private individual.”
He said on Monday that if Russia were faced with losing Crimean or using nukes, they would choose the latter.
Former CNN producer and correspondent, Frida Ghitis is a world affairs columnist. She is a weekly opinion contributor to CNN, a contributing columnist to The Washington Post and a columnist for World Politics Review. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. There is more opinion on CNN.
Putin and the macho world: a book review of Musk’s recent achievements and his visit to Russia, Ukraine, Taiwan, and Beijing
Musk has a restless mind so he could use a moment to focus on what he believes. He appears to want to be one of the good guys, but then he doesn’t seem quite sure. Maybe that’s what happens when you’re the mighty ruler of your business empire and seem to think that makes you one of the masters of the universe.
Nothing in Musk’s monumental series of business accomplishments suggest that he has any expertise to delve into the world’s most dangerous conflicts. But that hasn’t stopped him. Musk has been talking about Russia-Ukraine and Taiwan’s tensions with Beijing with the self-confidence of a knowledgeable person.
But people who need a lot of attention make themselves vulnerable. Musk, not content to have the worlds largest fortune, is being manipulated by a master manipulator.
It suggested that Ukraine (and one assumes the world) accept Russian sovereignty over Crimea, that another referendum be held in Russia-annexed Ukrainian lands, this time under UN supervision (and despite Russian military occupation!), among other ideas.
Russia loved the plan. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov praised Musk, adding that “achieving peace without fulfilling Russia’s conditions is absolutely impossible.” The plan, he thus confirmed, fulfilled Russia’s conditions.
Then there was another twist to the much-scrutinized tweet. After US political scientist Ian Bremmer of the Eurasia Group said Musk told him he spoke to Russian President Vladmir Putin before that tweet, Musk denied it.
But the most telling analysis of the relationship between Musk and Putin – those two paragons of excessive self-confidence – came from Fiona Hill, once the top Russia hand in the US National Security Council.
“Putin,” she told Politico, “plays the egos of big men, gives them a sense that they can play a role. But in reality, they’re just direct transmitters of messages from Vladimir Putin.”
As a former KGB agent, Putin is trained in the art of reading and manipulating people. Some images of Putin plying his craft with world leaders – for instance, bringing his black Labrador to a meeting with the reportedly fearful of dogs then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in 2016 – are indelible.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/18/opinions/elon-musk-russia-ukraine-putin-xi-china-ghitis/index.html
What Do We Want to Say About Space Flight? What Does Musk Want To Say About Taiwan, China, and the U-turns of Musk?
What’s in it for Musk? The man who turned space flight into a for-profit business is experimenting with a different vehicle. This is a trip for egotistical reasons.
In an interview with the Financial Times, he unveiled his proposal for resolving hostilities between Beijing and Taipei. Taiwan could have an arrangement that is more generous than Hong Kong, according to Musk. China, you’ll remember, promised “one country, two systems” for Hong Kong, until it broke its word and crushed Hong Kong’s freedom.
China was quick to give praise and thanks to the billionaire. Taiwan’s Washington envoy had a scathing reply, tweeting: “Taiwan sells many products, but our freedom and democracy are not for sale.”
Musk’s impulsiveness and U-turns are familiar. Just as he decided to buy Twitter, then changed his mind, and then changed it again, he swerved on Starlink.
The CNN report sparked a lot of criticism. The person who makes decisions on the fly was the reason Musk backpedaled two days later. He said they will keep funding it for free.
When someone replied that no good deed goes unpunished, Musk struck a humanitarian pose and declared, movingly, “Even so, we should still do good deeds.”
Despite his shenanigans, and even though he sometimes seems to act as a mischievous teenager, he likes to take himself seriously, thinking big thoughts about important topics. His business ideas are of the highest praise.
But he also likes to taunt, occasionally with disastrous consequences. He’s being sued on claims that he touted the all-but-worthless dogecoin as part of a pyramid scheme. (Musk says he still supports it.) The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating him over Twitter, and previously sanctioned him over other market-manipulating tweets. Musk and the SEC settled on fraud charges, agreeing on penalties.
Donald Trump is a free speech absolutist and he wanted to get him back on the platform. Free speech in the complicating, fast-changing age of social media is one of the topics where experts say he lacks a serious understanding of the extraordinarily complex issues a major platform has to grapple with.
What do tech companies really need to do to protect themselves against a terrorist threat? The case of Ukraine from November 8 to Dec. 7, 2018, according to Starlink
Ukraine should not be dependent on a system so subject to one man’s infamously mercurial whims. The role of tech companies—already infamously unaccountable—in such vital causes is far too great here, and the world does not need any more tech barons falling in love with their “one weird trick” to end global crises. The time has come to consider re-nationalizing vital infrastructure in order to protect them from the kind of silliness that can catch CEOs fancy on social media.
Understanding what happened over the past few weeks will require a lot of information, though it is worth noting that some dates on which events were reported are not actually when they happened.
In an apparently unrelated event, on October 7, it was reported that Starlink terminals were experiencing outages all across the front line of the Ukrainian advance against Russian forces in the Donbas and farther south in Kherson oblast.
Anticipation is mounting for a possible battle for Kherson, a Russian-occupied city in southern Ukraine. Kremlin-installed officials have been evacuating civilians in preparation for a potential Ukrainian counteroffensive.
The US election results this week will affectUkraine, after some Republicans warned that funding could be restricted if the party won control of the House of Representatives.
Also Tuesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will host Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson. Erdogan insists Sweden must meet certain conditions before it can join NATO.
The United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday is scheduled to discuss an International Atomic Energy Agency report, in which Ukraine is expected to be on the agenda.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of “energy terrorism,” as attacks on Ukraine’s infrastructure left more than 4 million Ukrainians without electricity.
Russia rejoined a U.N.-brokered deal to safely export grain and other agricultural goods from Ukraine, on Nov. 2. Moscow had suspended its part in the deal a few days prior after saying Ukraine had launched a drone attack on its Black Sea ships.
The Pentagon said it would give $400 million in additional security help to the Ukrainians.
Iran acknowledged for the first time last year that it provided some drones to Russia, but denied it was still supplying them on Nov. 5. Zelenskyy countered that “Iran was lying because Ukrainian forces shoot down at least 10 Iranian drones every day.”
You can read past recaps here. NPR has more in-depth coverage on this site. You can receive updates throughout the day by listening to NPR’s State of Ukraine.
Starlink and the Ukrainians: What we can do to limit our capability to do that, but we can’t do it militaristically
Gwynne Shotwell said there were things we could do to limit their ability to do that. There are some things we can do.
Shotwell argued that Starlink was not meant to be used in a militaristic way, but that Ukrainian forces would rely on the technology.
“It was never intended to be weaponized,” Shotwell told an audience at a space conference. The Ukrainians have used it in ways that were not part of an agreement.
Shotwell said that the Pentagon was the one that asked them to fund it. “We stopped interacting with the Pentagon on the existing capability. They aren’t paying.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/09/politics/spacex-ukrainian-troops-satellite-technology/index.html
The Starlink project — a new way to solve the Schr”odinger equation and an old problem with neutron stars and pulsars
She said that she doesn’t think that they thought about it. You know, it could be used that way? We weren’t thinking about it. I didn’t think about it. I am not sure, our Starlink team may have. We have learned a lot in a short time.