Washington — Tech billionaire Elon Musk has stated that he prevented a Ukrainian assault on a Russian Navy base final yr by declining Kyiv’s request to activate web entry within the Black Sea close to Moscow-annexed Crimea. Satellite tv for pc web service Starlink, operated by Musk-owned firm SpaceX, has been deployed in Ukraine since shortly after it was invaded by Russia in February 2022.
“There was an emergency request from authorities authorities to activate Starlink all the way in which to Sevastopol. The apparent intent being to sink a lot of the Russian fleet at anchor,” Musk posted Thursday on X, previously named Twitter.
Town of Sevastopol is the bottom of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet on the Crimean peninsula, which was annexed by Moscow in 2014.
“If I had agreed to their request, then SpaceX can be explicitly complicit in a significant act of conflict and battle escalation,” Musk stated.
Musk was posting in response to a printed excerpt of an upcoming biography of the tech tycoon by Walter Isaacson.
Within the excerpt revealed by The Washington Publish on Thursday, Isaacson wrote that in September final yr, “The Ukrainian navy was trying a sneak assault on the Russian naval fleet based mostly at Sevastopol in Crimea by sending six small drone submarines full of explosives, and it was utilizing Starlink to information them to the goal.”
Musk had “spoken to the Russian ambassador to the USA… (who) had explicitly informed him {that a} Ukrainian assault on Crimea would result in a nuclear response,” Isaacson wrote.
Musk “secretly informed his engineers to show off protection inside 100 kilometers of the Crimean coast. In consequence, when the Ukrainian drone subs bought close to the Russian fleet in Sevastopol, they misplaced connectivity and washed ashore harmlessly”, based on Isaacson.
In one other submit on Thursday, Musk countered Isaacson’s account.
“The Starlink areas in query weren’t activated. SpaceX didn’t deactivate something,” Musk posted.
Russia’s ex-president and senior safety official Dmitry Medvedev, in response to Isaacson’s detailing of the incident, lauded Musk.
“(Musk) was involved a few retaliatory nuclear strike,” Medvedev posted on X Thursday. “If what Isaacson has written in his ebook is true, then it seems like Musk is the final ample thoughts in North America. Or, on the very least, in gender-neutral America, he’s the one with the balls.”
Musk additionally referred to as Thursday for a truce within the battle.
“Either side ought to conform to a truce. Day by day that passes, extra Ukrainian and Russian youth die to achieve and lose small items of land, with borders barely altering. This isn’t value their lives,” he posted.
The know-how mogul has been embroiled in earlier public spats with Ukrainian leaders who’ve been angered by his controversial proposals to deescalate the battle, together with acknowledging Russian sovereignty over the occupied Crimean Peninsula.
In October 2022, eight months after he says he made the choice to disclaim Ukraine’s “pressing” request to increase the Starlink protection, Musk modified course after suggesting he would cease funding the usage of his satellite tv for pc community by Ukraine.
Musk had stated that SpaceX wouldn’t be capable of pay for Starlink in Ukraine indefinitely, however the subsequent day he stated in a tweet: “The hell with it. Regardless that Starlink remains to be shedding cash & different corporations are getting billions of taxpayer $, we’ll simply hold funding Ukraine govt without spending a dime.”
He modified his thoughts after the U.S. navy confirmed it was speaking with the billionaire’s firm about the potential of U.S. authorities funding for Ukraine to proceed utilizing the satellite tv for pc community.
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