Oleg Davigora00:31, 09/09/23

3 min.131

After the act of sabotage, a period of cooling began in the billionaire’s relationship with the Ukrainian authorities.

Businessman Elon Musk secretly ordered his engineers to shut down Starlink satellite communications to thwart a planned strike by Ukrainian drones, after speaking with the Russian ambassador. This is stated in an excerpt from the future biography of historian Walter Isaacson “Elon Musk”, writes Politico .

Musk himself on Thursday evening painted a different picture than the one painted by Isaacson: according to him, the satellites in these regions were never turned on at all, and he simply chose not to activate them.

Isaacson writes that Musk panicked when he heard about plans for a Ukrainian attack in which Starlink satellites would send six drones carrying explosives to the coast of Crimea. After speaking with Russia’s ambassador to the US, Anatoly Antonov, who reportedly told him that an attack on Crimea would trigger a nuclear response, Musk ordered his engineers to shut down Starlink coverage “within 100 kilometers of the coast of Crimea.”

This led to the fact that the drones lost contact and were thrown ashore, which actually sabotaged the offensive mission, the publication clarifies.

Ukraine’s response was immediate, with officials calling Musk and asking him to turn the service back on, saying “unmanned submarines are critical to their fight for freedom.” But Musk was adamant. He claimed that Ukraine had “gone too far and caused a strategic defeat” and that he did not want his satellites to be used for offensive purposes. After the act of sabotage, a period of cooling began in the billionaire’s relationship with the Ukrainian authorities, Politico notes.

“An emergency request has been received from government authorities to activate Starlink all the way to Sevastopol,” Musk reported on Twitter. “The apparent intent was to sink most of the Russian fleet at anchor. If I agreed to their request, SpaceX would clearly be involved.” in a great act of war and conflict escalation”.

(C)UNIAN 2023