Elon Musk reveals he blocked Ukrainian attack on Russian Naval Fleet

Tech billionaire Elon Musk has disclosed that he prevented a Ukrainian attack on a Russian Navy base last year by refusing Kyiv’s request to activate internet access in the Black Sea near the Moscow-annexed Crimea region.

Starlink, a satellite internet service operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, had been deployed in Ukraine shortly after the country’s invasion by Russia in February 2022.

Elon Musk revealed in a post on the social media platform ‘X’ (formerly Twitter), “There was an emergency request from government authorities to activate Starlink all the way to Sevastopol. The obvious intent being to sink most of the Russian fleet at anchor.”

Sevastopol is the base of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet on the Crimean peninsula, annexed by Moscow in 2014.

Musk added, “If I had agreed to their request, then SpaceX would be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation.”

His comments came in response to an excerpt from an upcoming biography of Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson, published by The Washington Post. The excerpt revealed that in September the previous year, “The Ukrainian military was attempting a sneak attack on the Russian naval fleet based at Sevastopol in Crimea by sending six small drone submarines packed with explosives, and it was using Starlink to guide them to the target.”

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According to Isaacson, Musk had spoken to the Russian ambassador to the United States, who had warned that a Ukrainian attack on Crimea could lead to a nuclear response. Consequently, Musk instructed his engineers to turn off Starlink coverage within 100 kilometers of the Crimean coast, causing the Ukrainian drone submarines to lose connectivity and wash ashore harmlessly.

In response to this account, Elon Musk refuted the claims, stating, “The Starlink regions in question were not activated. SpaceX did not deactivate anything.”

Former Russian president and senior security official Dmitry Medvedev commended Musk’s actions. He posted on ‘X,’ “If what Isaacson has written in his book is true, then it looks like Musk is the last adequate mind in North America. Or, at the very least, in gender-neutral America, he is the one with the courage.”

Elon Musk also called for a truce in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, emphasizing that the loss of lives over minor territorial gains was not worth the sacrifice.

There was an emergency request from government authorities to activate Starlink all the way to Sevastopol.

The obvious intent being to sink most of the Russian fleet at anchor.

If I had agreed to their request, then SpaceX would be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and…

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 7, 2023