As the Russia-Ukraine conflict enters its fourth year, a recent Reuters report has caused an uproar by accusing Elon Musk of instructing a temporary halt to Starlink services during a pivotal Ukrainian offensive in 2022.
Musk instructed top engineers at SpaceX’s California headquarters to shut off Starlink coverage in multiple frontline regions, including Kherson, a strategic area Ukraine was fighting to retake, the report says.
Communication Blackout on the Battlefield
Three people close to the issue informed Reuters that Musk’s order caused a communications blackout for Ukrainian forces. According to the report, more than 100 Starlink terminals were disabled during the operation.
“Soldiers panicked, drones monitoring Russian troops went offline, and long-range artillery units, which depended on Starlink to target their fire, couldn’t hit their targets,” Ukrainian military officers informed Reuters.
This communications disruption, the report alleges, led to the failure of Ukraine’s Kherson offensive. Ukrainian troops allegedly lost key coordination features in the maneuver.
Musk’s Alleged Fears About Nuclear War
One of the individuals quoted in the Reuters probe said Musk decided to intervene out of concern that a more intense Ukrainian advance could incite a Russian nuclear attack.
The report timing has been questioned as it comes only a day after the world experienced a Starlink outage, which affected thousands of users with no connection. Musk responded to the outage on X (formerly Twitter) with the following message, “Service will be restored shortly. Sorry for the outage. SpaceX will remedy the root cause to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”
SpaceX Denies Allegations of Starlink Shutdown
SpaceX has rejected the allegations made in the Reuters report. When questioned by the news outlet, a SpaceX representative called the findings “inaccurate” and referred to an earlier company statement, “Starlink is fully committed to providing service to Ukraine.”
Furthermore, Musk had previously defended against similar allegations in March 2024, posting on X, “Starlink would never do such a thing.”
In spite of denial from SpaceX, the report revived questions regarding the role of private technology firms in international conflicts as well as the moral implications of dominating battlefield communications.
