Democratic lawmakers are probing SpaceX over Russia’s reported use of Starlink in Ukraine, saying that recent developments raise questions about SpaceX’s “compliance with US sanctions and export controls.”
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk last month denied what he called “false news reports [that] claim that SpaceX is selling Starlink terminals to Russia,” saying that, “to the best of our knowledge, no Starlinks have been sold directly or indirectly to Russia.” But Musk’s statement didn’t satisfy US Reps. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), who sent a letter to SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell yesterday.
“Starlink is an invaluable resource for Ukrainians in their fight against Russia’s brutal and illegitimate invasion. It is alarming that Russia may be obtaining and using your technology to coordinate attacks against Ukrainian troops in illegally occupied regions in Eastern and Southern Ukraine, potentially in violation of US sanctions and export controls,” Raskin and Garcia wrote.
Musk has also stated that “Starlink satellites will not close the link in Russia.” However, the concerns raised by Rankin and Garcia are about whether Russia used the broadband service in Ukraine. Their letter said that Ukraine last month “released intercepted audio communications between Russian soldiers that indicated Russian forces had illegally deployed and activated Starlink terminals in certain Russian-occupied areas in Eastern Ukraine.”
Badeendje@lemmy.world 8 months ago
How does the DOD find it acceptable that a corporation is actively profiting from providing infrastructure to the enemy.
Probably because they are not officially the enemy. Hopefully sanctions will be amended to fix this.
Endorkend@kbin.social 8 months ago
After explicitly denying the service to an ally.
Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee 8 months ago
Did Elon Musk Turn Off Starlink Access in Crimea To Disrupt Ukrainian Attack?
Tl;dr: No.
Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee 8 months ago
Who is profiting from this exactly? I don’t undestand why people keep spreading this disinformation when not a single single article, including the one above, makes no accusations of SpaceX being complicit in it anyway. The only thing they’re being critiziced for, or rather questioned about is wether they’re doing enough to track the terminals near the front lines and making sure they’re not being used by sanctioned parties.
If you actually read the article you’d know that selling Starlink to Russia already is against the sanctions. It does not work in Russia or in the occupied territories. This is why the drone assault on the Crimea failed aswell. Not because Musk disabled Starlink but because it wasn’t enabled in the first place.
STOMPYI@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Hey… fuck elon… fuck all his fucking companies…
Buelldozer@lemmy.today 8 months ago
You are swimming upstream on this one. People know what they were told by biased headlines on Reddit last summer and they don’t want to hear anything else.
What’s happening right now with Russian forces using Starlink is precisely why SL had the service disabled in the occupied territories and near the front lines in the first place!
Badeendje@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Starlink. They sell more groundstations.
So your argument is that it can’t be because it is turned off for specific regions.
jaybone@lemmy.world 8 months ago
In a shocking twist, it turns out the DOD is owned by the corporations.
Badeendje@lemmy.world 8 months ago
3 defense contractors in a trenchcoat.