Elon Musk And US Government Talk About Using Starlink In Ukraine

JAKARTA - US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Saturday, February 18 that the US government had had conversations with Elon Musk about using Starlink satellite internet in Ukraine.

SpaceX this month said it had taken steps to prevent the Ukrainian military from using the company's Starlink services to control drones over Ukraine during that country's war with Russia.

Asked in an interview with NBC News' "Meet the Press with Chuck Todd" that aired Sunday, February 19, whether the United States had asked Musk, the company's chief executive, not to limit the Ukrainian military's use of Starlink capabilities, Blinken said: "Well, I can't share any conversations we had other than to say we had conversations."

SpaceX has privately delivered truckloads of Starlink terminals to Ukraine, which allow the country's military to communicate by plugging them in and connecting them with the nearly 4,000 satellites SpaceX has launched into low Earth orbit.

While Russia has tried to block Starlink's signal in the region, SpaceX has managed to counter that by beefing up the service's software, Musk said.