More than a thousand Starlinks stop working in Ukraine - CNN

About 1,300 Starlink satellite communication devices from Elon Musk's SpaceX in Ukraine have failed. According to CNN , citing two sources familiar with the matter, the terminals were disabled due to the fact that their work was not paid.

It is known that in September SpaceX approached the Pentagon with a proposal to take over the financing of Starlink in Ukraine, on which the communication of the Ukrainian military in the combat zone is very dependent. However, Musk later said that Starlink would continue to operate in Ukraine regardless of the willingness of the US Department of Defense to provide funding.

The shutdown of terminals in Ukraine began on October 24, according to one of the agency's interlocutors. He also said that SpaceX charged the Ukrainian military $2,500 a month to maintain communications with each of the 1,300 terminals, which brought the total cost of operating the terminals to almost $20 million.

It is known that the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine at the beginning of October turned to its British colleagues with a request to pay a monthly bill of 3.25 million dollars. However, the payment was not made. London added to CNN:

We maintain a number of terminals that are of direct tactical use to the Ukrainian military in repelling a Russian invasion, but we review and prioritize all new requests in terms of the impact the contribution could have on Ukraine's support.

According to SpaceX, there are almost 20,000 Starlink terminals in Ukraine, most of which were acquired in whole or in part with external funding, in particular from the governments of the United States, Poland and the United Kingdom.