> not a person who turned off Ukraine's starlink access on a whim based on his personal opinion of an international event
I marked this story to follow up on when it broke, because it interested me.
I'm no Musk fan, but I did find his telling of this story credible: Starlink was initially disabled in Crimea due to sanctions, the Ukrainian uncrewed surface vehicle team assumed coverage would be available all the way to their target, and Musk declined to extend coverage when they asked at the last minute, in the context of a specific, planned military operation. I happen to be a lawyer familiar with those sanctions---and how businesses tend to address them---but you could cross-reference stories about GitHub and others freezing accounts of people logging in from Crimean IPs for a sense.
Either way, I'd be careful with words here. I don't recall any reports of Starlink being shut down for Ukraine or Ukrainian forces overall. There was another news arc some time before about Musk insisting the government pick up the tab for continued service. But as far as I know that never resulted in any major service disruption. I vaguely recall it's now on Department of Defense contract, but you'd want to check that.
I marked this story to follow up on when it broke, because it interested me.
I'm no Musk fan, but I did find his telling of this story credible: Starlink was initially disabled in Crimea due to sanctions, the Ukrainian uncrewed surface vehicle team assumed coverage would be available all the way to their target, and Musk declined to extend coverage when they asked at the last minute, in the context of a specific, planned military operation. I happen to be a lawyer familiar with those sanctions---and how businesses tend to address them---but you could cross-reference stories about GitHub and others freezing accounts of people logging in from Crimean IPs for a sense.
Either way, I'd be careful with words here. I don't recall any reports of Starlink being shut down for Ukraine or Ukrainian forces overall. There was another news arc some time before about Musk insisting the government pick up the tab for continued service. But as far as I know that never resulted in any major service disruption. I vaguely recall it's now on Department of Defense contract, but you'd want to check that.