Tech billionaire and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, in a cryptic post, said that the entire front line would collapse in Ukraine if I turned Starlink off.
Soon after his post, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski reacted to the post, saying they would be forced to switch to other service providers if Starlink proves to be unreliable in desperate times.
His reaction invoked a strong response from Musk, directing Polish FM to “be quiet” during the argument.
Musk has donated over 40,000 Starlink terminals to Ukraine since 2022. Ukrainian troops are using the service to guide drone and artillery strikes, among other tasks on the battlefield.
On Sunday, Musk, an adviser to US President Donald Trump, reiterated his call for a ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia, describing his Starlink system as “the backbone of the Ukrainian army.”
“Their entire front line would collapse if I turned it off. What I am sickened by is years of slaughter in a stalemate that Ukraine will inevitably lose,” he wrote on X.
Sikorski responded to Musk’s post, noting that “Starlinks for Ukraine are paid for by the Polish Digitisation Ministry at the cost of about $50 million per year."
“The ethics of threatening the victim of aggression apart, if SpaceX proves to be an unreliable provider, we will be forced to look for other suppliers,” the minister added.
“Be quiet, small man,” Musk replied. “You pay a tiny fraction of the cost. And there is no substitute for Starlink,” he wrote.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio argued that Sikorski was “just making things up.”
“No one has made any threats about cutting Ukraine off from Starlink,” Rubio stressed. “And say thank you because without Starlink, Ukraine would have lost this war long ago, and Russians would be on the border with Poland right now.”
The situation between the US and its partners in defence, mainly the EU, escalated since the US threatened to pull back all aid from Ukraine.
Also read: Ukraine has shown zero commitment to peace: Trump
While it has sent shockwaves to the EU leadership. Several nations have questioned the US’s role as a reliable defence partner since the majority of Europe depends on US protection in case of possible military confrontations with other states
Last week, Trump suspended the delivery of weapons to Ukraine and restricted intelligence sharing, arguing that Kiev should be more receptive to his efforts to broker a peace deal.
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