Elon Musk turned off Starlink satellite ‘to prevent Ukrainian attack’ off Crimea

Elon Musk told his engineers to switch off a Starlink satellite communications network near the coast of Crimea last year due to fears that a Ukrainian attack on Russia’s naval fleet could trigger a nuclear response from President Putin, a new biography has revealed.

Ukraine has used SpaceX-made Starlink satellite terminals to keep its military forces connected even as Russia has destroyed phone and internet networks. Yet as Ukrainian submarine drones armed with explosives approached the Russian fleet in the Black Sea, they suddenly lost connectivity and “washed ashore harmlessly”, according to Walter Isaacson’s new biography of the eccentric billionaire, entitled Elon Musk. An excerpt was published yesterday by CNN.

Musk’s concerns that a strike on the Kremlin’s forces in Crimea could lead to a nuclear attack were heightened after conversations with senior Russian officials, Isaacson wrote. He was also worried that the attack would be seen in Moscow as a “mini-Pearl Harbor”.

The Tesla and SpaceX boss refused to reverse his decision even after appeals from Mykhailo Fedorov, a Ukrainian deputy prime minister.

Elon Musk was concerned that a strike on the Kremlin’s forces in Crimea aided by his satellites could lead to a nuclear attack

THEO WARGO/WIREIMAGE/GETTY IMAGES

Fedorov is said to have tried to sway Musk by detailing the capabilities of the drones. “I just want you — the person who is changing the world through technology — to know this,” he wrote in a text message. Musk said that while he was impressed with the drones, he would not turn the Starlink network back on because he believed that Ukraine was “inviting [Russia’s] strategic defeat”, according to Isaacson.

Crimea was annexed by Russia from Ukraine in 2014 and western officials are concerned that the Kremlin could resort to nuclear weapons to defend it.

President Zelensky has said there can be no ceasefire until Russian forces have left the Black Sea peninsula.

Starlink equipment arrviing in Lviv in March last year

ALAMY

Musk provided Ukraine with millions of dollars of Starlink satellite terminals after Russia targeted its communications systems before its full-scale invasion last year. The grey terminals have also been used to allow Ukrainians in newly liberated regions to get in touch with relatives. Zelensky uses them to transmit his nightly broadcasts to the nation.

However, as Ukraine began using the Starlink technology to co-ordinate strikes against Russian forces, the businessman had second thoughts about his involvement in the conflict.

“How am I in this war?” Musk asks Isaacson in the biography. “Starlink was not meant to be involved in wars. It was so people can watch Netflix and chill and get online for school and do peaceful things, not drone strikes.”

Although Musk’s technology has proven essential to Ukraine’s resistance, he sparked fury in Kyiv last year when he floated a peace plan that would have left Crimea under the Kremlin’s control. In a social media post, Musk suggested holding United Nations-supervised elections in four occupied regions of Ukraine that Moscow has claimed as Russian territory.

• How powerful are Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites?• Putin, the ‘Goblin’ and the resistance: life and death in occupied Crimea

Musk said in October that SpaceX was spending $20 million a month to maintain the Starlink system. The company was said to have told the Pentagon that it would be unable to foot the bill any longer. However, Musk had a rethink, tweeting: “The hell with it, we’ll just keep funding Ukraine govt for free.”

In June the Pentagon said that SpaceX had won a US defence contract to provide Ukraine with satellites. “Satellite communications constitute a vital layer in Ukraine’s overall communications network and the department contracts with Starlink for services of this type,” the Pentagon said.