Elon Musk responds to accusations of disrupting the attack on the Russian Black Sea Fleet

8 September, 2023 Unmanned surface vehicle in the Sevastopol area.

21.09.2022. Crimea, Ukraine. Photo from social networks

Businessman Elon Musk has responded to the reports that he allegedly secretly ordered to turn off his company's Starlink satellite communications network near the Crimean coast to disrupt a Ukrainian sneak attack last year on the Russian naval fleet in Sevastopol. He stated that he did not turn off the connection, but only rejected Ukraine's request to activate it in the region. "The Starlink regions in question were not activated.

SpaceX did not deactivate anything," Musk wrote. The billionaire claims that he feared a possible attack by the Ukrainian Defense Forces on the Russian fleet.

Elon Musk's post in the social network X (Twitter)

"There was an emergency request from government authorities (Ukraine - Ed.) 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 conflict escalation," Musk wrote on September 8 on the X social network (Twitter).

Ukrainian naval drone. Autumn 2022. Ukraine.

Frame from the video u24.gov.ua

Musk responded to an article published on Thursday, September 7, in CNN. According to the publication, last year, businessman Elon Musk allegedly secretly ordered his engineers to turn off his company's Starlink satellite communications network near the Crimean coast. He wanted to prevent a Ukrainian sneak attack on the Russian naval fleet in Sevastopol.

This is stated in an excerpt from a new biography of Musk by Walter Isaacson. In his book, the author writes that when Ukrainian underwater drones with explosives approached the Russian fleet, they suddenly "lost contact and harmlessly washed ashore." He allegedly had such fears after communicating with "high-ranking Russian officials." The article stated that Musk's decision to allegedly turn off the satellite communications network was due to "acute fear" that Russia would respond with nuclear weapons to a Ukrainian attack on Crimea.

In February of this year, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said during a conference in Washington that the company had taken steps to prevent Ukraine's military from using the company's Starlink satellite internet service to control drones in the region in the war with Russia.

Unmanned surface vehicle in the Sevastopol area.

21.09.2022.

Crimea, Ukraine.

Photo from social networks

Also in September 2022, Militarnyi reported that a military unmanned surface vehicle of an unknown type was discovered near the Russian naval base in occupied Sevastopol.