Although Elon Musk has said that Starlink will continue to operate in Ukraine even without the financial aid, a new report says that on October 24, the Ukrainian military lost some of its Internet access due to the offlineization of 1,300 Starlink terminals. It was because of financial issues.
A few weeks ago, Elon Musk said that Starlink will stop service in Ukraine if funding is not received. Of course, the richest person in the world retracted his words after a while and said that SpaceX will continue to serve without financial assistance. But apparently this was a false promise because almost a week after this statement, access to 1300 terminals in Ukraine was cut off due to financial issues, and of course the company continues to negotiate for funding.
According to CNN, this outage occurred while Starlink was negotiating with the Pentagon, and according to an official of the US Department of Defense, everyone knows that Elon Musk receives service fees in Ukraine:
“Negotiations are ongoing and everyone in our unit knows that we have to pay them. “We also want to have something in writing because we’re worried Elon Musk might change his mind in the future.”
Behind the promise of Elon Musk and the troubles of the Ukrainian army
On October 23, after many criticisms, Elon Musk officially announced in a tweet that he will continue to provide free Starlink in Ukraine indefinitely, although at the same time some reports indicated that SpaceX satellite internet in this country It is not free.
Even a week later, on November 2, Elon Musk confirmed again in a tweet that even if the Pentagon does not provide financial assistance, Starlink will not be cut in Ukraine. But apparently on the same day, due to financial issues, the access of 1300 terminals to the SpaceX satellite internet will be cut off.
According to CNN, the internet outage last month created a big problem for the Ukrainian army. In March, Ukraine will buy 1,300 terminals from a British company, and SpaceX wants the country to pay $2,500 a month to use them. But after some time Ukraine can no longer pay 3.25 million dollars a month to SpaceX and asks for help from the British Ministry of Defense.
After negotiations, the British Ministry of Defense will pay part of the cost of the terminals, but apparently not all the costs will be paid by the UK.
Therefore, according to this report, apparently, contrary to Elon Musk’s promises to provide free Starlink in Ukraine, at least this service is not completely free for the country’s army, and SpaceX has received the service fee in Ukraine and is seeking funding from the Pentagon to continue this work. . Of course, currently the Ukrainian army continues to use Starlink without paying the full costs.
