The term Starlink sounds vaguely like something out of a sci-fi film to me. But then my insight into technology is exceedingly limited, so what do I know! In the ongoing war initiated by Russia against Ukraine, many governments and agencies have imposed sanctions on Russia and sent various forms of aid to Ukraine. Starlink Terminals from Elon Musk's company SpaceX are one form of this aid.
Tweeting from his verified handle, Mykhailo Fedorov, the Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine tweeted this to Elon Musk. The request was to provide Starlink terminals to Ukraine’s civil society at a time when Russian rockets were attacking not only people but communication systems and other military and civilian installations.
I of course had to read up about what Starlink services are. In a war situation like the one that Ukrainians find themselves in, internet access is vital. However, the Russian invasion has caused significant disruptions. The Starlink system is able to provide internet coverage essentially anywhere on earth, using a number of low Earth orbit satellites to provide high-speed broadband coverage. Since 2019, SpaceX has launched about two thousand satellites for this purpose; the target being a total of 19,000 such satellites.
Not too long ago, there had been a major volcanic eruption on the Tonga Island located in the Pacific Ocean and a subsequent tsunami, which disrupted communications. At the time, Musk had provided the island nation with 50 Starlink terminals to restore internet connections in some of the hardest-hit areas.
Musk tweeted this a day after Fedorov’s tweet: “Starlink service is now active in Ukraine. More terminals en route.” Apparently, this is what Starlink terminals look like. Fedorov tweeted this image to acknowledge receipt and say thanks to Elon Musk. And just like that, it was possible to help the communication outage caused by an invading nation.
The reactions to this were many: it is true that Vladimir Putin would not be happy about this. While his own country is suffering strict sanctions that block trade, causing the currency to plummet, internet is reactivated in Ukraine. The attempt to cut off communication has been thwarted.
A question many were asking is – will Putin now try to shoot down those communication satellites? Well, he can try but he cannot disable Ukraine’s internet access without attacking foreign data centres and this would mean escalating the situation beyond what even Putin seems currently prepared to do. Right now, Putin is waging a war not only against the people of Ukraine but also the people of Russia in a sense. The attempt of Russian authorities to control the social media narrative has not worked and in spite of the fact that hundreds of Russians are in jail for opposing the war, people are continuing to organise and continue protesting against the war.
People have spoken out against Starlink services as being of limited use and resource intensive, however, others are seeing this as Musk doing something good and selfless for once in his life. Some feel that Musk has done more for Ukraine than the UN has.
While people were either praising or criticising Musk, another sobering question occurs. This incident shows us how much power a wealthy individual like Musk wields. With the might of enormous resources and technology at his disposal, he has the power to sway the outcome of wars as can be seen in this instance. Though we could argue that he picked the right side to help in this case, what if he hadn’t? What if Musk or someone like him decided to further strengthen the hand of an invading despot like Putin? This is a sobering thought.
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