Ukraine's intelligence chief accuses Musk of 'turning off' Starlink coverage over Crimea

he of Ukraine’s military intelligence service, Kyrylo Budanov claimed that Tesla CEO Elon Musk 'powered down' his Starlink satellite networks over highly contentious region of Crimea. Amid ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, Musk’s internet company is still providing network services to Ukraine. However, operation of Starlink over Crimean peninsula has been a matter of contention for a very long time. While Ukraine claimed that Musk 'deactivated' its coverage in region, Musk has me it clear that Starlink’s coverage over Crimea was never activated in first place. 

"It is true that he did turn off his products and services over Crimea before. But re's anor side to that truth. Everybody's been aware of that ... This specific case everybody's referring to, re was a shutdown of coverage over Crimea, but it wasn't at that specific moment. That shutdown was for a month," Budanov told an American military magazine, Sputnik reported. He went on to d that throughout first period of war, re was no satellite coverage in region at all. Ukrainian official noted that Kyiv uses Musk's products and services "very widely" and powering Musk furr would le to a “catastrophe”. 

Did Starlink ever provide coverage in Crimea during war? 

An excerpt from Musk’s biography written by Walter Isaacson stirred a controversy over Musk’s decision to not provide Starlink coverage to Crimean peninsula. Several Ukrainian officials, including Mykhailo Podolyak, viser to office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, started claiming that Musk ‘turned off’ coverage which allowed Russian fleet to attack several Ukrainian cities. “This is price of a cocktail of ignorance and big ego. However, question remains: why do some people so desperately want to defend war criminals and ir desire to commit murder? And do y now realise that y are committing evil and encouraging evil?” Podolyak wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. Amid all chaos, on September 9, author of book clarified that Musk never activated Starlink services in Crimean peninsula. 

“To clarify on Starlink issue: Ukrainians THOUGHT coverage was enabled to Crimea, but it was not. y asked Musk to enable it for ir drone sub-attack on Russian fleet. Musk did not enable it, because he thought, probably correctly, that would cause a major war,” Isaacson wrote on X. Musk himself said that he refused to provide Kyiv with Starlink coverage over Crimea to avoid complicity in a "major act of war". Earlier this year, Musk even said that he was considering pulling off Starlink from war-stricken country since it was getting difficult to maintain system without getting funding from government.