President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday that initially, Elon Musk was instrumental in helping Ukraine resist Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country. With the help of the US government, Elon Musk provided Starlink satellite Internet receivers that ensured troops could withstand the Kremlin’s electronic and conventional warfare.
Because at some point it looks like Elon Musk started to change his mind and we all started hearing appeals like that,” Zelensky told conference attendees organized by The New York Times.
In October, Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter, outlined in a tweet what he described as a plan for Ukraine-Russia peace. Under the proposal, regions of Ukraine illegally annexed by Russia would participate in internationally monitored elections on their future status; Crimea, which Moscow annexed in 2014, will formally become part of Russia.
Critics, including Ukrainian officials, panned the proposal in favor of Russian interests at a time when the Kremlin was de facto starting a war. According to political analyst Ian Bremer, this also came after Elon Musk admitted that he had recently spoken with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a claim Musk later denied, saying that he had spoken in the past 18 years. It was Talked to Putin only once in months and the topic was space.
Elon Musk has also angered Ukrainian authorities by suggesting he will no longer pay for their Starlink service, which has suffered “catastrophic” outages in some occupied parts of the country, limiting offensive operations. in an apparent attempt to do something that might raise an argument, such as an attempt to reclaim the Crimean peninsula
According to the Washington Post, the US government has paid SpaceX for at least 1,330 Starlink terminals and covered the cost of delivering them to Ukraine. Starlink is raising the cost of its terminals and monthly Internet service fees in Ukraine.
Speaking on Wednesday, Zelensky said he did not know why the billionaire had shifted from the firm to his unflinching support for Ukraine. I don’t know whether anybody is influencing him or he is making those choices himself, Zelensky said. The Ukrainian president said he would invite Musk and others for a first-hand look before considering how to end the war.
Zelensky said, I always say very openly, if you want to understand what Russia has done here, come to Ukraine and without saying anything you will see it with your own eyes. And after that, you will tell us how to end this war, who started it and when we can end it.