Washington — Tech billionaire Elon Musk claims that he thwarted a Ukrainian attack on a Russian Navy base near Moscow-annexed Crimea last year by refusing Kyiv’s request to activate internet access in the Black Sea. Musk, through his company SpaceX, operates the satellite internet service Starlink, which has been deployed in Ukraine since Russia invaded the country in February 2022.
“There was an emergency request from government authorities to activate Starlink all the way to Sevastopol. The obvious intent being to sink most of the Russian fleet at anchor,” Musk tweeted on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The city of Sevastopol is the base 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 would be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation,” Musk said.
Musk’s comments were in response to a published excerpt of an upcoming biography of the tech mogul by Walter Isaacson.
In the excerpt published by The Washington Post, Isaacson wrote that in September of the previous year, “The Ukrainian military was attempting a sneak attack on the Russian naval fleet based at Sevastopol in Crimea by sending six small drone submarines packed with explosives, and it was using Starlink to guide them to the target.” According to Isaacson, Musk had spoken to the Russian ambassador to the United States, who warned that a Ukrainian attack on Crimea would result in a nuclear response. Musk then instructed his engineers to turn off Starlink coverage along the Crimean coast, causing the Ukrainian drones to lose connectivity and wash ashore harmlessly.
In another tweet on Thursday, Musk refuted Isaacson’s account. “The Starlink regions in question were not activated. SpaceX did not deactivate anything,” he posted.
Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former president, praised Musk in response to Isaacson’s account. “If what Isaacson has written in his book is true, then it looks like Musk is the last adequate mind in North America. Or, at the very least, in gender-neutral America, he is the one with the balls,” Medvedev posted on X.
Musk also called for a truce in the conflict, stating, “Both sides should agree to a truce. Every day that passes, more Ukrainian and Russian youth die to gain and lose small pieces of land, with borders barely changing. This is not worth their lives.”
Musk has faced criticism from Ukrainian leaders in the past due to his controversial proposals to deescalate the conflict, including recognizing Russian sovereignty over Crimea. However, in October 2022, Musk reversed his decision to deny Ukraine’s request for extended Starlink coverage after the U.S. military expressed interest in funding Ukraine’s use of the satellite network.
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