this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2023
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[–] the_crab_man -4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Starlink wasn't enabled in that region to begin with.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Lol! That's why disabling it prevented Ukraine from launching an offensive, right?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In the CNN article I read they say musk was specifically asked to expand the network for the operation. It seems like a weird spin.

[–] the_crab_man 5 points 1 year ago

He did not disable it, he refused to enable it in that region.

[–] jarfil 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

He did not disable anything, he refused a foreign (Ukrainian) request to enable it, that was contrary to his country's (US) stance at that moment: sanctions forbidding him to provide any service over Russia or Russian assets.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Others say he disabled the system. Malicious narcissist & pathological liar says he didn't. If Musk disabled the system it makes him look very bad and may result in a major government response that would harm Musk and his business.

Gee, I wonder who is telling the truth?

[–] jarfil 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

This isn't "who said what", these are facts:

  • Musk had no contract with the DoD
  • The US imposed sanctions on private businesses from offering services to Russia
  • Starlink blocked all service over Russia and Russian assets
  • Ukraine asked Musk to extend the service over Russian assets
  • Musk followed US's rules
  • Shit happened
  • Suddenly, the US DoD scrambled to get a contract for Starlink... wonder why?

As much as I dislike Musk —and I wouldn't be surprised if he used this to negotiate a better contract—, this one was a total fuckup by the US DoD, and in part by Ukraine for not pressuring the DoD into signing a contract much sooner.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Where do you get your "facts'? Especially like the "shit happens" addition to explain an admitted action by Musk. Very creative.

[–] jarfil 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Facts come from history, most are recorded for everyone to check, particularly these ones are public. You may even find the exact dates for each one.

The "shit happens" is Ukraine botching a military operation because they asked a private US citizen to break US law. You may have confused "action" with "inaction as ordered".

Edit: Here's a link with sources and dates.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thanks for the link. So many people online just pull stuff from their ass it's a surprise when sources actually exist.

I see nothing in those links regarding the DoD contract specifics and I think you're making assumptions about how US law is applied in foreign war zones involving our allies and hostile adversaries. US law is amazingly flexible in just about any situation that can be said to involve our or our allies national security. The Defense Department has withheld almost all information about the Starlink contract, and from what I can see even the date it was signed hasn't been made public. All I can find at multiple sites is that a contract has been signed with almost zero additional information.

From the WA Post:

The Defense Department acknowledged the decision but withheld virtually all details about the agreement, including how much it will cost U.S. taxpayers and when the contract was signed.

From Ronan Farrow's excellent New Yorker article:

SpaceX, Musk’s space-exploration company, had for months been providing Internet access across Ukraine, allowing the country’s forces to plan attacks and to defend themselves. But, in recent days, the forces had found their connectivity severed as they entered territory contested by Russia.

At a conference in Aspen attended by business and political figures, Musk even appeared to express support for Vladimir Putin. “He was onstage, and he said, ‘We should be negotiating. Putin wants peace—we should be negotiating peace with Putin,’ ” Reid Hoffman, who helped start PayPal with Musk, recalled. Musk seemed, he said, to have “bought what Putin was selling, hook, line, and sinker.” A week later, Musk tweeted a proposal for his own peace plan, which called for new referendums to redraw the borders of Ukraine, and granted Russia control of Crimea, the semi-autonomous peninsula recognized by most nations, including the United States, as Ukrainian territory. In later tweets, Musk portrayed as inevitable an outcome favoring Russia and attached maps highlighting eastern Ukrainian territories, some of which, he argued, “prefer Russia.”

By then, Musk’s sympathies appeared to be manifesting on the battlefield. One day, Ukrainian forces advancing into contested areas in the south found themselves suddenly unable to communicate. “We were very close to the front line,” Mykola, the signal-corps soldier, told me. “We crossed this border and the Starlink stopped working.” The consequences were immediate. “Communications became dead, units were isolated. When you’re on offense, especially for commanders, you need a constant stream of information from battalions. Commanders had to drive to the battlefield to be in radio range, risking themselves,” Mykola said. “It was chaos.” Ukrainian expats who had raised funds for the Starlink units began receiving frantic calls. The tech executive recalls a Ukrainian military official telling him, “We need Elon now.” “How now?” he replied. “Like fucking now,” the official said. “People are dying.” Another Ukrainian involved told me that he was “awoken by a dozen calls saying they’d lost connectivity and had to retreat.” The Financial Times reported that outages affected units in Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv, Donetsk, and Luhansk. American and Ukrainian officials told me they believed that SpaceX had cut the connectivity via geofencing, cordoning off areas of access.

The senior defense official said, “We had a whole series of meetings internal to the department to try to figure out what we could do about this.” Musk’s singular role presented unfamiliar challenges, as did the government’s role as intermediary. “It wasn’t like we could hold him in breach of contract or something,” the official continued. The Pentagon would need to reach a contractual arrangement with SpaceX so that, at the very least, Musk “couldn’t wake up one morning and just decide, like, he didn’t want to do this anymore.” Kahl added, “It was kind of a way for us to lock in services across Ukraine. It could at least prevent Musk from turning off the switch altogether.”


I find it laughable that Musk would assert that Putin wants peace and that Ukraine should negotiate. Putin can achieve peace by unilaterally withdrawing his forces and restoring pre-war borders. In other words Musk wants peace on his and Putin's terms and that means victory for Russia.

We don't know the specific timelines of what else has gone on with Musk and Ukraine yet. We do know that Musk lies constantly about things as important as major government contracts, buying out major corporations, taking companies private, the capabilities of Telsa vehicles and even about things as mundane and ridiculous as showing up for a cage match with Zuckerburg. It strains credulity to suggest he's not lying about what he's done with Starlink if telling the truth might make him look bad. Given his history of openly siding with Putin and pushing Ukraine to surrender significant parts of their country, it is more than reasonable to assume he's lying in support of that goal too.

[–] jarfil 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Not sure if it was in an article or on TV, but at some point there was a map showing Starlink coverage over Ukraine, and how it faded towards the borders in order to go down to zero in the conflict areas. Obviously the moment Ukrainian forces started to push, they went into the blackout areas and were SOL.

Regarding the DoD agreement... I'm not sure where I've read it, but apparently he asked the DoD to foot the bill for Starlink around the end of 2022... and then when the agreement was drafted and they were about to pay for it, he decided that "nah", he'd follow providing the service for free. I highly suspect that was a weasel way to negotiate better terms and/or amount, knowing that the DoD needed a contract to hold him accountable, and that they were actually willing to pay.

You're not wrong in not trusting the guy, nobody should; according to his recent biography, he seems to take everything as a big game with the main objective of making more money.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago

What I find especially disturbing about this entire scenario is that Musk is literally choosing to protect the Russian war machine instead of the people who are being attacked - including seniors, women, infants and children. Taking steps to protect an aggressor while actively preventing a country from defending its non-combatant citizens from unprovoked attacks is just plain evil.

I expect Musk will have a movie made about him someday. It won't be flattering.