The SpaceX company can no longer afford to continue financing the Starlink internet network in Ukraine, its boss Elon Musk has warned (AFP/Archives/Odd ANDERSEN)
The company SpaceX no longer has the means to continue to finance the Starlink internet network in Ukraine, warned its boss Elon Musk on Friday, an appeal to the American government to take over.
Since the start of the war in Ukraine, SpaceX has delivered thousands of terminals there which provide an Internet connection through a constellation of satellites forming the Starlink network.
Some 25,000 terminals have been deployed in the country to date, according to Elon Musk.
According to the boss of SpaceX, the operation has already cost the company 80 million dollars and the bill should reach 100 million by the end of the year.
On Friday, he warned that the space company “cannot continue to fund the existing system indefinitely and send thousands of additional terminals (…). This is not reasonable.”
According to CNN, SpaceX sent a letter to the Pentagon last month indicating that it could no longer afford the costs of service in Ukraine.
The company was asking, according to CNN, the US Department of Defense to take over funding for the use of Starlink by the Ukrainian government and its military, the cost of which was estimated at $400 million for the next 12 months.
The Starlink network has helped maintain internet coverage in areas of Ukraine hit by the Russian military. As of June, around 15% of Ukraine’s existing internet infrastructure had been destroyed or damaged, authorities said.
“Starlink is the only communications system that continues to function on the front, all the others are dead,” Elon Musk tweeted Friday evening.
“Russia is actively trying to kill Starlink. For its protection, SpaceX has redirected massive resources to defense,” he added.
The billionaire warned that despite these resources earmarked for the defense of Starlink, the system “could very well disappear”.
According to the British daily Financial Times, the Ukrainian forces may have suffered Starlink service cuts on the front, which would have slowed down their counter-offensive, before the situation improved.
The antenna of a Starlink satellite terminal donated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX company, on September 25, 2022 in Izium, in the Kharkiv region, Ukraine (AFP/Archives/Yasuyoshi CHIBA)
“To our knowledge, SpaceX has not interrupted its service to Ukrainian civil government agencies and critical infrastructure operators,” a spokesperson for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) said Friday evening.
Ukrainian telecommunications operators have also been targeted by numerous cyberattacks.
Elon Musk assures that with the exception of a “small percentage”, all the costs of deploying and maintaining Starlink terminals in Ukraine have been borne by SpaceX.
The USAID spokesperson said on Friday that the agency had purchased more than 1,500 terminals from SpaceX in April to deliver them to Ukraine, then 86 new terminals in July for the authorities of the Lviv region.
© 2022 AFP
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