- Ukraine is working with SpaceX to stop Russian soldiers using Starlink, a Ukrainian minister said.
- SpaceX — and its founder Elon Musk — had disputed that Russia had access to Starlink at all.
- Ukraine now says SpaceX has conceded that it is happening, and is working on ways to deny access.
Ukraine said Monday that it’s working with Elon Musk’s SpaceX to stop Russia using Starlink terminals in its war.
The development — described by a Ukrainian minister giving a TV interview — followed a public fight over whether Russia had access to the technology at all.
Musk had previously asserted that Russia wasn’t using Starlink internet in its invasion, which Ukraine repeatedly denied.
Starlink has been a major help to Ukrainian forces, allowing them to communicate in war-torn territories and easily operate technology like its drone fleet.
Russia was not supposed to enjoy the same advantage, but Ukraine said it was acquiring the terminals and putting them to use in the parts of eastern Ukraine occupied by its forces.
In a Monday interview with the Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne, Ukraine’s minister for digital transformation said his officials had offered a solution.
“We found an algorithm and proposed it to SpaceX and we are now communicating with them to ensure that such cases do not occur,” said the minister, Mikhailo Fedorov.
“SpaceX has done something similar with the Israeli government,” he added, a reference to a deal struck over the use of Starlink in Gaza.
Fedorov said that simply turning Starlink off in occupied territories wasn’t an option as Ukraine still needs its drones to be able to use the technology in these areas.
“There are other ways to make sure our Starlinks work and others don’t. We are working with SpaceX on this,” he said.
Earlier this month, Ukraine’s spy chief, Kyrylo Budanov, told The Wall Street Journal that Russia was using thousands of Starlink terminals bought on the “open market”.
It was using private companies to disguise the purpose of the purchases, Budanov said, then shipping them to Russia through other countries.
Elon Musk has consistently denied that Russians are using Starlink.
“This is categorically false. To the best of our knowledge, no Starlinks have been sold directly or indirectly to Russia,” he previously wrote on X.
His comments focused on the possibility of Starlink being used in Russia itself, rather than in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine.
SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, sent outside regular working hours.
Musk has been an ambivalent figure in the war. He was praised by Ukrainians for providing Starlink access to the military in the early months of the conflict but has also been receptive to Russia’s point of view.
He infamously cut off Starlink access during a high-stakes Ukrainian attack on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, causing the attack to fail.
Last week, he urged Republican lawmakers to vote against more funding for Ukraine, saying “there is no way in hell” that Russia would lose the war.
Fedorov said he didn’t think there was “any connection” between Russia’s acquisition of Starlink terminals and Musk’s own views.
“It was only logical that the Russians would start purchasing them through third countries,” he said.
“They had Starlinks, but now there are a few more of them. Someone, perhaps a Russian entrepreneur, has begun to monetize it.”
“For me the survival of our soldiers is more important than concerning myself with Musk’s statements.”
