Billionaire Elon Musk ordered the shutdown of Starlink satellite internet over part of the Kherson region in the fall of 2022, in the midst of a major counteroffensive by the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The decision caused serious disruptions to frontline communications and raised concerns about Musk’s growing influence over the course of the war and global security, according to a new Reuters investigation.
According to three sources familiar with the matter, Musk instructed a senior engineer at SpaceX, the company that operates the Starlink network, to deactivate satellite coverage in the Kherson area, which Ukrainian troops were then trying to liberate. At least a hundred Starlink terminals instantly became “dead zones” on the company’s coverage map.
On the front line, Ukrainian units lost contact, drones stopped transmitting video, and artillery could not fire due to a lack of coordination. According to a military source, this led to the disruption of the encirclement of Russian troops in the Beryslav area.
Although the Ukrainian military eventually liberated Beryslav and Kherson, Musk’s order was the first documented instance of him deliberately restricting Starlink over a combat zone. Some SpaceX employees were shocked, and military officials in the U.S. and Ukraine are concerned that the entrepreneur had real influence over the course of the war.
Musk has publicly denied such actions. In March 2024, he wrote on X (formerly Twitter): "We would never do such a thing." But Reuters sources claim that the decision to turn off was related to Musk's fear of a possible nuclear escalation by the Russian Federation in response to the rapid advance of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. His concerns, according to a former White House official, were also shared by some American officials.
Starlink has become a critical tool for the Ukrainian Armed Forces since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022. The terminals provide a robust satellite internet connection that allows for communications, drone control, and artillery coordination. To date, more than 50,000 terminals have been delivered to Ukraine, funded by SpaceX, the governments of the United States, Poland, Germany, and other partners.
Despite the incident, Starlink is still in active use in Ukraine, but Ukrainian officials are continuing to look for alternatives that could complement or replace Starlink if the service becomes unavailable, a senior government official told Reuters. The Ukrainian government has expressed interest in European satellite systems such as GOVSATCOM, an EU project aimed at pooling satellite resources from member states and industry to provide services to governments.
But in private conversations, some Ukrainian officials have said that existing alternatives to Starlink have limitations. “It takes time and money,” a senior government official told Reuters. With Starlink, he added, “we have a working system.”
Musk himself has boasted about Starlink’s importance to Ukraine. “My Starlink system is the backbone of the Ukrainian army,” he wrote in March in X. “Their entire front line will fall if I turn it off.”