The president of SpaceX, Gwynne Shotwell, said Wednesday that the company has limited Ukraine’s use of Starlink terminals and that it wasn’t the company’s intention for the satellite internet service to be weaponized.
Shotwell referred to media reports that said Ukraine was using Starlink to spot targets with drones. “There are things that we can do to limit their ability to do that. There are things that we can do, and have done,” she said at a space industry conference in Washington DC, according to Reuters.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said his company began providing Starlink terminals to Ukraine shortly after Russia’s invasion. Shotwell said that the terminals were “never meant to be weaponized.”
“However, Ukrainians have leveraged it in ways that were unintentional and not part of any agreement,” she said. Shotwell added that it was ok if Ukraine’s military was using Starlink for “comms,” but the company’s “intent was never to have them use it for offensive purposes.”
Ukraine has received thousands of Starlink terminals since Russia invaded. Some of them were funded by the US and France, but SpaceX also donated many of the terminals on their own. Musk said in October that providing the terminals would cost his company over $100 million by the end of 2022.
Despite his aid for Ukraine, Musk drew the ire of Ukrainian officials last fall when he floated an idea for a potential peace deal that involved Kyiv giving up its claim to Crimea. Most notably, Andrij Melnyk, a Ukrainian diplomat, told Musk to “F— off.”
“F— off is my very diplomatic reply to you,” Melnyk wrote. “The only outcome ist that now no Ukrainian will EVER buy your f—ing tesla crap. So good luck to you,” he added in another tweet. At the time, Melnyk was Ukraine’s outgoing ambassador to Germany. In November, Malnyk was appointed as Ukraine’s deputy minister of foreign affairs.
Smart words, if true, after all, Russia could fry those satellite links with ease.
They could, but that would be a dumb move, “Analzer.”
Taking out satellites isn’t easy and may have 2nd and 3rd effects that would come back to bite them in the ass such as space debris taking out their own crappy satellites. Plus, Putin isn’t the only boy with an anti satellite gun out there.
Stick to your tequila and let me handle the analysis.
LOL
If you call that analysis, be my guest.
Take advantage of Old Bear and Wars R Us liking your stupid posts.
I wonder how well Starlink performs without electricity on the ground.
Indeed. EMPs are more destructive than the credit given.
I hadn’t thought of that! I was thinking about the loss of Ukraine’s electricity infrastructure.
Okay, so they are liars.
Why should we treat blatant lies as if they were something else, repeating them and spreading the lie?
They meant to say, “SpaceX Limits Ukraine’s Use of Starlink, Says It Shouldn’t Be ‘Weaponized’” unless Elon gets paid.
You might be right. And the payment might be favorable treatment in some matter unrelated to Ukraine.
I know very little about Musk. But this guy seems to be born to play with fire. Nobody could be foolish enough to believe that Starlink in Ukraine would not be weaponized. He’s walking a tightrope with both China and the US with his Tesla operations in China. His initial interest in Twitter never made sense to me… unless it was politically motivated.
“At the time” of Melnyk’s ridicule of Musk for suggesting a negotiated settlement, he “was Ukraine’s outgoing ambassador to Germany.”
“Outgoing” after Melnyk’s belligerant public denial of Ukraine’s part in the Holocaust forced Zelensky to pull him…
…back to Ukraine, where he was “appointed…deputy minister of foreign affairs.”
Good! These people got free internet from Musk and then turned on him just because he suggested peace in a very limited way. Turn it off altogether!
“SpaceX Limits Ukraine’s Use of Starlink, Says It Shouldn’t Be ‘Weaponized’ Starlink’s terms of service say the satellite internet shouldn’t be used for military operations”
Just in time to avoid prosecution as war criminals since Starlink is being used to employ chemical weapons in Ukraine by fascists Ukrainians.
Joey Biden, Anthony Blinken, and Lloyd Austin are now all complicit in the use of chemical weapons in Ukraine and should be tried before the World Criminal Court.
Bullshit.
I was not going to publish this grisly video, but since you fail to see that the Ukrainians are war criminals you should be aware of what your buddies are doing.
These videos are not posted lightly. One is horrible showing a Russian soldier in his DEATH THROES after being attacked and exposed to cyanide gas.
Warning: content – not for sensitive viewers.
In the first video an AFU drone operator’s dropping chemical weapons. Our militaries tried to cover in the water, but they started having seizures, vomiting and convulsions. Our guys drowned in agony.
In the second video, published by Ukrainian ‘military blogger’ Yury Madiar, he boasts of chemical munitions and hints that the AFU preparing to use prohibited munitions on facilities in Artemovsk.
Madiar has previously posted footage showing members of his gang making drones with multi-coloured cylinders.
The international community! Helloooooo! Is anybody here ? Where are you? It was you who raised these terrorists now violating all rules of engagement. Or perhaps it was your military instructors who had trained them for all that?
https://t.me/TXDPR/4985
https://t.me/TXDPR/4984
Since when does telling Ukraine how to defend itself become Musk’s job? This man is a train wreck and his narcissistic need for attention is getting even more people killed.
It’s the golden rule — those who have the gold (or, in this case, the Internet access satellites) make the rules.