Ukraine said it received 150 sets of SpaceX’s Starlink from Poland hours before Tesla Inc TSLA CEO Elon Musk told the U.S. to pay for the high-speed internet services because it can no longer afford to give it to Ukraine for free.
What Happened: Ukrainian Ministry of Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories said the Starlink sets would allow it to quickly restore communication until the damaged infrastructure is rebuilt in the liberated regions.
“Some of them are intended for mobile operators and Internet providers. Currently, mobile operators have restored 27 mobile base stations in the Kharkiv region and continue to restore others,” it added.
This came days after Musk drew massive flak on social media, including from Ukrainian officials for polling his followers on what would be the most likely outcome of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Following his tweet, Ukraine's outgoing ambassador to Germany, Andriy Melnyk, sharply replied to Musk. "F**k off is my very diplomatic reply to you, Elon Musk," he said.
Musk later defended it to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and said he supports Kyiv. “I still very much support Ukraine, but am convinced that massive escalation of the war will cause great harm to Ukraine and possibly the world,” he said.
The billionaire entrepreneur early Friday on Twitter said SpaceX could not "indefinitely" fund the Starlink internet service in Ukraine and send it several thousand more terminals.
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