In early 2022, not long after Russia’s invasion began, SpaceX made good on CEO Elon Musk’s promise by shipping thousands of Starlink broadband internet terminals to the front lines of Ukraine.
The terminals quickly turned into a vital lifeline as many parts of the embattled region were plunged into the dark and cut off from the rest of the world.
But Musk has been accused of playing both sides, with biographer Walter Isaacson claiming the billionaire had secretly ordered SpaceX engineers not to turn on the Starlink satellite network near the Crimean coast in 2022 to disrupt what Musk called a “mini-Pearl Harbor.”
And as the war rages on some four years later, SpaceX’s terminals are once again making headlines. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky accused the space company of restricting access to its Starshield service, a military version of the service specifically developed for the Pentagon.
