Washington
CNN
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Since they first started Arrived in Ukraine last springStarlink satellite Internet stations built by Elon Musk’s company SpaceX have been a vital source of communication for the Ukrainian military, allowing it to fight and keep in touch even as cell phone networks and the Internet are destroyed in its war with Russia.
So far, about 20,000 Starlink space units have been donated to Ukraine, with Mask Tweet on Friday The operation cost SpaceX $80 million and will exceed $100 million by the end of the year.
But those charitable contributions may be coming to an end, as SpaceX has warned the Pentagon that it could stop funding service in Ukraine unless the US military hits tens of millions of dollars a month.
Documents obtained by CNN show that Musk’s SpaceX last month sent a letter to the Pentagon saying it could no longer continue to fund Starlink service as it did. The letter also requested that the Pentagon take over funding for the Ukrainian government and military use of Starlink, which will cost SpaceX’s claims more than $120 million for the rest of the year and could cost nearly $400 million for the next 12 months.
“We are not in a position to donate terminals to Ukraine, or fund existing ones for an indefinite period of time,” SpaceX’s director of government sales wrote to the Pentagon in a September letter.
Among the SpaceX documents sent to the Pentagon and seen by CNN is a previously unreported direct request submitted to Musk in July by Ukrainian Army Commander Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, for nearly 8,000 additional Starlink stations.
In a separate cover letter to the Pentagon, an outside consultant working for SpaceX wrote, “SpaceX is facing very difficult decisions here. I don’t think they have the financial capacity to provide any additional terminals or service as requested by General Zaloghny.”
The documents, which have not been previously reported, provide a rare breakdown of SpaceX’s internal numbers on Starlink, detailing the costs and payments associated with the thousands of terminals in Ukraine. They also shed new light on the behind-the-scenes negotiations that provided Ukraine with millions of dollars in telecom equipment and services at no cost to Kiev.
The messages come amid recent reports of widespread Starlink outages such as Ukrainian forces are trying to regain control of the territory It is occupied by Russia in the eastern and southern parts of the country.
Sources familiar with the outages said they suddenly affected the entire frontline as it was on September 30th. “It affected every effort the Ukrainians made to get across that front,” said a person familiar with the interruptions who spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive conversations. “Starlink is the main way units must communicate on the battlefield.”
Another person said there was no warning for Ukrainian forces, adding that now when Ukraine liberates an area, a request must be made to operate Starlink services.
Financial Times First mentioned A senior Ukrainian official said the communication outage led to a “catastrophic” loss of communications. In a tweet in response to the article, Musk did not object to the outage, saying that what is happening on the battlefield is classified.
SpaceX’s suggestion that it will stop funding Starlink also comes amid growing concern in Ukraine about Musk’s loyalty. Musk recently tweeted a controversial peace plan that would see Ukraine give up Crimea and take control of the eastern Luhansk and Donetsk regions.
After Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky raised the question of who Musk is on his side, he replied that he “still supports very much.”[s] Ukraine ‘but fears a ‘massive escalation’.
Musk also argued in private sessions last month that Ukraine did not want peace negotiations for now, and that if they agreed to his plan, “Russia would accept those terms,” according to a person who heard it.
“Ukraine knows that its current government and war effort are entirely dependent on Starlink,” said the person familiar with the discussions. “The decision to keep Starlink running or not rest entirely in the hands of one man. This is Elon Musk. He wasn’t elected, and nobody decided to give him that power. He got it because of the technology and the company he built.”
tuesday musk to reject Report spoke to Putin directly about Ukraine. On Thursday, when a Ukrainian minister tweeted that Starlink was essential to Ukraine’s infrastructure, Musk replied: “You are welcome. Happy to support Ukraine.”
More than seven months into the war, it is hard to overstate Starlink’s influence in Ukraine. The government in Kyiv and Ukrainian forces as well as NGOs and civilians have relied on the smart, compact and easy-to-use modules created by SpaceX. It is used not only for audio and electronic communication but to aid in flying drones and send back video to correct artillery fire.
CNN has seen it used in several Ukrainian bases.
“Starlink was absolutely necessary because the Russians targeted Ukraine’s communications infrastructure,” said Dmitriy Alperovich, co-founder of Silverado Policy Accelerator, a think-tank. “Without that they would have really worked in the blind in many cases.”
Although Musk received widespread praise and thanks for responding to Starlink service requests to Ukraine as the war began, in fact, the vast majority of the 20,000 stations received funding in whole or in part from outside sources, including the US government, and the UK and Poland, according to SpaceX’s letter to the Pentagon.
SpaceX’s demand that the United States push the bill has alarmed senior Pentagon officers, with a top defense official telling CNN that SpaceX has “the audacity to look like heroes” while others are paying too much and are now billing them in the tens of millions a month.
According to SpaceX figures shared with the Pentagon, about 85% of the 20,000 stations in Ukraine have been paid for – or have been partially paid for – by countries such as the US and Poland or other entities. These entities also paid for about 30% of internet connectivity, which SpaceX says costs $4,500 per month per unit for more advanced services. (Over the weekend, Musk tweeted that there are about 25,000 terminals in Ukraine.)
In his July letter to Musk, the Ukrainian commander in chief, General Zalogny, praised the “exceptional utility” of the Starlink units and said the military had deployed about 4,000 terminals. However, about 500 stations a month were destroyed in the fighting, Zaloghny said, before he asked for an additional 6,200 Ukrainian army and intelligence stations and 500 a month to move forward to make up for the losses.
SpaceX said they responded by asking Zaluzhniy instead to take his request to the Defense Department.
On September 8, SpaceX’s director of government sales wrote to the Pentagon that costs had risen significantly, approaching $100 million. The official asked the Department of Defense to receive Ukraine’s new order in addition to ongoing service costs, which total $124 million for the remainder of 2022.
Those costs, according to a senior defense official, would come to nearly $380 million for an entire year.
SpaceX declined repeated requests for comment on both the service outage and its recent request to the Pentagon. Musk’s lawyer did not respond to a request for comment. “The Department continues to work with industry to explore solutions for the Ukrainian armed forces as they push back against brutal and unprovoked Russian aggression. We don’t have anything else to add at this time,” Defense Department spokesman Bob Dechy told CNN.
Early US support for Starlink came via the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which has spent about $3 million on hardware and services in Ukraine, according to the Washington Post. The largest individual contributor to stations, according to newly obtained documents, is Poland with nearly 9,000 individual stations paid out.
The United States provided nearly 1,700 terminals. Other contributors include the UK, NGOs and crowdfunding.
However, the most expensive part is the constant connection. SpaceX says it has paid for about 70% of the service provided to Ukraine and claims to have provided that higher level – $4,500 per month – for all terminals in Ukraine although the majority registered only the cheaper service of $500 per month.
The terminals themselves cost $1,500 and $2,500 for the two models sent to Ukraine, the documents say, while consumer models on the Starlink website are much cheaper and service in Ukraine is just $60 per month.
That’s just 1.3% of the price of the service that SpaceX says it needs the Pentagon to start paying.
“You could say he’s trying to get money from the government or he’s just trying to say ‘I don’t want to be a part of this anymore,'” the person familiar with Ukraine’s requests told Starlink. Given the recent outages and Musk’s reputation for being unpredictable, he said this The person “Feelings are already growing on the Ukrainian side.”
Musk is the largest shareholder in privately owned SpaceX. CNBC reported in May, that SpaceX had revealed its valuation had risen to $127 billion, and had raised $2 billion this year.
Last week, Musk faced a barrage of criticism on Twitter – including from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky – after he presented in a series of tweets his peace plan to end the war. It would include giving Crimea to Russia and re-holding referendums, this time overseen by the United Nations, in the four regions recently illegally annexed by Russia.
Echoing comments he made last month at a private, closed-door conference in Aspen, Colorado, entitled “The Weekend,” Musk told a room full of attendees that Ukraine should seek peace now that they’ve had recent victories.
“This is the time to do it. They don’t want to do it, that’s for sure. But this is the time to do it.” Everyone wants to seek peace when they lose, but they don’t want to pursue peace when they win. So far.”
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