The Kremlin and Elon Musk deny the use of Starlink satellites

The Kremlin and Elon Musk have officially denied Kyiv’s accusations that Russian forces are using the multimillionaire businessman’s Starlink satellite internet service.

“This is a system that is not certified in our country, so it cannot be officially delivered here and is not officially supplied,” Russian Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

“Hence, it cannot be used in any way,” he added.

Elon Musk, a South African businessman with North American citizenship and owner of Starlink, on Sunday denied that the system had been delivered to Moscow.

“This is a complete lie. As far as we know, not a single Starlink terminal has been sold to Russia, directly or indirectly,” he said on his social network X.

This Monday, Ukraine repeated the same accusations it made on Sunday.

“Through third countries, Starlink is freely available in Russia. Compared to last year, the use of Starlink by the Russian army on the front line has become more systematic and clearly regulated,” said Andri Yusov, a representative of one of the departments. military intelligence of Ukraine.

“There have been recorded cases of the use of these devices by Russian occupiers,” he accused.

According to the Ukrainian news agency UNIAN, radio intercepts established that Russian units stationed near Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine “began to massively use Starlink on the front line.”

Starlink is a network of two thousand small, low-altitude satellites connected to ground terminals that provide wireless Internet access.

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began two years ago, Elon Musk’s SpaceX has delivered several thousand terminals to Kyiv.

This network is necessary for communications of the Ukrainian army.

Currently, relations between Ukraine and Elon Musk are complicated: Kyiv thanked him for installing satellites, but later expressed outrage when the businessman suggested that the country give up territory in order to achieve peace.