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At the beginning of Ukraine’s defense against the Russian invasion, the technology that has been provided by SpaceX called StarLink enables ubiquitous access to the satellite internet connection, which gives a tactical advantage of surveillance of the battlefield for Ukraine’s troops over Russian ones who struggle with poor internet connection. But what would happen if SpaceX stopped providing this game-changer technology?
According to the latest news, Elon Musk the CEO of SpaceX has been accused of holding a conversation with Mr. Putin. After he tweeted a question if his followers approved of the proposal to end the war in Ukraine under Rusian’s conditions which contain, among others, the approval of Rusian’s annexation of Crimea.
To predict what would happen if Ukraine’s army became StarLink deprived, let’s refer to issues that StarLink has been a response for, and its implementations as well:
Vulnerability of internet infrastructure:
- Since the first days of the Russian invasion, Russian forces have attacked crucial infrastructure responsible for connectivity:
- Attack on television towers in Kyiv on Feb. 24th.
- Attack on television towers in Kharkiv on Feb. 24th.
- Bombarding offices of Kyivstar in Mariupol on March 21st. (Ukraine’s largest internet provider)
- Successful attempt to hack Viasat on Feb. 24th.
(Viasat is an American provider of a network that was used by the Ukrainian troops to exchange information between coordinating units and with the army located on the battlefield)
Implementation of StarLink:
- Tracking targets for drone strikes.
- Daily communication between Unkrain’s units.
- Communication bridge between Ukraine’s soldiers and their families.
- Keeping Ukraine’s population on the ball, providing reliable information from the Western media.
- Enabling to share of Ukraine’s President’s speeches on the battlefield, in order to rise the spiritual morals of Ukraine’s troops.
If we take these implementations and the vulnerability of Ukraine’s infrastructure and turn them upside down, we will see a few underbellies that Ukraine would be exposed to in case of a lack of StarLink technology.
To sum up this post. I will use one of the Ukrainian soldier’s quotes “Starlink is our oxygen, you can’t just turn it off”
Thank you for your time.
Feel free to add comments below.
Sources:
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/09/elon-musk-spacex-starlink-ukraine-00038039
https://www.economist.com/briefing/2022/10/06/elon-musks-foray-into-geopolitics-has-ukraine-worried
Elon has recently tweeted, after being urged to do so on Twitter, that he will implement a ‘donate’ function for Starlink. Soon, it will be possible to chip in to support internet access in Ukraine (and also other states, like Kenya). Furthermore, Musk claims that Starlink has withdrawn its request for funding from the government of the U.S.
I believe that introducing the donate function can ensure the stability of internet access for Ukrainian soldiers, at least for the nearest future.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/pentagon-in-talks-on-ukraine-starlink-funding-but-elon-musk-says-request-withdrawn-11666045514
If we look at the current situation and new controversies around Elon we can speculate that the idea of stopping supplying Ukrainians with Starlink ran through his head, but in my opinion, this will never happen because of due to public opinion and also share holders of tesla. This move could potentially destroy Tesla’s share prize and kill the company.