Ukrainian Official Asks Elon Musk For Starlink Satellites To Maintain Internet Amid Invasion

The Ukrainian government has put out an S.O.S. to Tesla TSLA CEO Elon Musk for a donation of the SpaceX Starlink satellites to overcome internet outages created by invading Russian forces.

What Happened: Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov took to Twitter TWTR on Saturday with a direct plea to Musk.

“@elonmusk, while you try to colonize Mars — Russia try to occupy Ukraine!” Federov tweeted. “While your rockets successfully land from space — Russian rockets attack Ukrainian civil people! We ask you to provide Ukraine with Starlink stations and to address sane Russians to stand.”

See Also: Analysis: 5 Major Economies Whose Leaders Refuse To Condemn Putin's Invasion Of Ukraine

What Also Happened: Musk responded to Fedorov's request at 5:33 p.m. EST, tweeting "Starlink service is now active in Ukraine. More terminals en route."

Prior to this, Musk’s sole recent comment specifically related to Ukraine occurred on Feb. 22 in response to a tweet from geographer Simon Kuestenmacher that showed the Crimea region of Ukraine had the largest share of opponents to Ukrainian independence from Russia in 1991. Musk’s response to the highlighting of Crimea was “… a river” – a pun on the old torch song “Cry Me a River.”

However, Musk also responded to a Twitter threat made by Russian space program chief Dmitry Rogozin of allowing the International Space Station to drop out of orbit in retaliation of US and European condemnation of the Russian invasion. Musk responded that he would deploy SpaceX to save the ISS from damage.

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