NATO ally refutes Elon Musk’s Starlink in Ukraine claims

A prominent NATO ally has hit back at Elon Musk‘s claims around Starlink’s funding in Ukraine.

Poland’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Radek Sikorski, said on October 10: “I’d like you to know Starlink units in Ukraine are not funded by Mr. Musk.

“They have been, are and will be funded exclusively by Poland. We do it, nobody else does it. And it’s a factor in Ukraine being able to continue fighting.”

Sikorski’s statements, which were made on Polish news channel Polsat News, were in response to years of Musk’s back and forth claims on X (formerly Twitter) around his funding of Starlink in Ukraine.

Musk first started discussing Ukraine’s use of Starlink, which is a satellite internet company owned by his satellite company SpaceX, in 2022.

He discussed the cost of Starlink when responding to an article from Financial Times journalist Christopher Miller about Starlink terminals failing to connect to the internet in Ukraine.

Musk said: “This article falsely claims that Starlink terminals & service were paid for, when only a small percentage have been.

“This operation has cost SpaceX $80M & will exceed $100M by end of year.”

CNN also revealed in 2022 that SpaceX’s director of government sales had written to the Pentagon, saying: “We are not in a position to further donate terminals to Ukraine, or fund the existing terminals for an indefinite period of time.”

However, on October 15, 2022, Musk posted on X again to say: “The hell with it … even though Starlink is still losing money & other companies are getting billions of taxpayer $, we’ll just keep funding Ukraine govt for free”

Sikorski hit back at claims that any of this was relevant, stating that Poland is responsible for funding Starlink, not Musk.

Sikorski said that Starlink is an important factor in Ukraine’s defense, as the access to the internet that it supplies is secure and cannot be meddled with.

Sikorski’s comments also counter previous Newsweek reporting, which has said that Starlink in Ukraine is supplied by a $23 million SpaceX contract with the Pentagon.

Newsweek has contacted the Pentagon and the Polish government via email for comment.

Sikorski’s words come at a time when Poland is spending a record amount on defense. The country’s 2024 defense budget is 4 percent of its total spending, adding up to $48.5 billion.

In May 2024, it was reported that the Pentagon teamed up with Musk to prevent the use of Starlink’s broadcast systems by the Russians.

However, in September, the Ukrainian news site Defense Express published accusations that a downed Russian plane was fitted with a Starlink system. Newsweek could not verify these claims at the time.

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