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

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

"It is true that he did turn off his products and services over Crimea before. But there's another side to that truth. Everybody's been aware of that ... This specific case everybody's referring to, there was a shutdown of the 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 add that throughout the first period of the war, there was no satellite coverage in the region at all. The Ukrainian official noted that Kyiv uses Musk's products and services "very widely" and powering Musk further would lead to a “catastrophe”. 

Did Starlink ever provide coverage in Crimea during the war? 

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

Sometimes a mistake is much more than just a mistake. By not allowing Ukrainian drones to destroy part of the Russian military (!) fleet via #Starlink interference, @elonmusk allowed this fleet to fire Kalibr missiles at Ukrainian cities. As a result, civilians, children are…

— Михайло Подоляк (@Podolyak_M) September 7, 2023

To clarify on the Starlink issue: the Ukrainians THOUGHT coverage was enabled all the way to Crimea, but it was not. They asked Musk to enable it for their drone sub attack on the Russian fleet. Musk did not enable it, because he thought, probably correctly, that would cause a…

— Walter Isaacson (@WalterIsaacson) September 9, 2023

“To clarify on the Starlink issue: the Ukrainians THOUGHT coverage was enabled to Crimea, but it was not. They asked Musk to enable it for their drone sub-attack on the 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 the 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 the war-stricken country since it was getting difficult to maintain the system without getting funding from the government.