The "Starlink" satellites play a crucial role in the communications of the Ukrainian troops. But during the current offensive, the SpaceX satellites have repeatedly failed, reports the Financial Times. Several scenarios are suspected behind this.
In the Ukraine, there are said to have been increased failures of the "Starlink" satellites from SpaceX. This is reported by the "Financial Times", citing reports from Ukrainian troops. Accordingly, they repeatedly complain about failures in communication via the Starlink satellites from Elon Musk's company.
Many of the problems were reported from the Kherson and Zaporizhia regions as front lines crossed into Russian-controlled areas, the newspaper writes, citing a Ukrainian government official. The front line east of Kharkiv, Donetsk and Luhansk is also affected. It is precisely in these regions that Ukraine has recently made strong progress. Some of the outages resulted in a "catastrophic loss of communications," the official said. Soldiers should have switched to emergency numbers. Western military officials also confirmed failures, but did not want to explain their statements to the newspaper.
SpaceX donated some of the Starlink terminals, some were bought by the US government or financed through crowdfunding. They have been ensuring Internet access in Ukraine for many months and are also supporting the Ukrainian troops in planning the war.
The coordinator of a foundation that donates satellite systems assumes a voting error. Starlink allegedly shut down the systems to prevent use by Russian troops. However, military officials in Ukraine fear a secret agreement between SpaceX boss Musk and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The weekly "The Economist" suspects that Putin could persuade Musk to completely withdraw access to "Starlink" for Ukraine. According to Ukrainian sources, he is said to have already denied a request for access from the annexed peninsula of Crimea.
Earlier in the week, Musk caused a stir when he launched polls on Twitter about possible "peace plans" for Ukraine. The proposals showed strong similarities to the Kremlin's demands. The Ukrainian side was outraged by the tweets.
Musk and SpaceX have not yet responded to reports of the communications failure. Musk simply tweeted: "What happens on the battlefield is classified." He said "only a small percentage" of the Starlink terminals and services deployed to Ukraine had been purchased, adding, "This operation has cost SpaceX $80 million and will reach $100 million by the end of the year exceed."
