Poland says it may need alternative to Musk’s Starlink in Ukraine
New Mania Desk / Piyal Chatterjee / 9th March 2025
Poland, currently funding Ukraine’s Starlink internet services, might look for alternatives if Elon Musk’s firm is seen as “unreliable,” the foreign minister stated on Sunday following the billionaire’s comments about possibly disabling access to the system.
Starlink offers essential internet access to Ukraine and its armed forces. U.S. negotiators urging Kyiv for access to Ukraine’s essential minerals have suggested the potential of denying the country access to the service.
Musk, a prominent individual in U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration, stated in a post on his X social media platform on Sunday that the “complete front line of Ukraine would fall apart if I disabled it”.
He expressed that he was “disgusted by … years of killings in a deadlock that Ukraine is bound to lose”.
The U.S. government has revoked certain access to satellite imagery for Ukraine and temporarily halted intelligence sharing, increasing pressure on Kyiv as Trump aims for a quick resolution to the war, now in its fourth year since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
“Starlinks for Ukraine are paid for by the Polish Digitization Ministry at the cost of about $50 million per year,” Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski wrote on X.
“The ethics of threatening the victim of aggression apart, if SpaceX proves to be an unreliable provider we will be forced to look for other suppliers.”
SpaceX, the parent company of Starlink, did not respond right away to an emailed request for comments sent outside of regular business hours.
Shares in the Franco-British satellite operator Eutelsat surged by as much as 650% in the week ending March 7, fueled by speculation that the company might take over internet access to Ukraine from Starlink.
The stocks declined on Friday, concluding the week with an increase of approximately 380%. In February, Poland announced it would persist in funding Ukraine’s Starlink subscription, even though reports suggested the U.S. might contemplate cutting it.
