Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters
After days of outrage from Ukrainians over the revelation that Elon Musk thwarted a Ukrainian attack on Russia’s naval fleet in Crimea last year, the SpaceX CEO says U.S. sanctions are to blame for the move.
Speaking at the All-In Summit on Tuesday, Musk said he would have needed direct approval from the Biden administration to enable Starlink satellite communications for the sneak attack.
“At the time this happened, the [satellite network in the] region around Crimea, um, was actually turned off. Now the reason it was turned off… actually originally it was because the United States had sanctions against Crimea, and we were not allowed to actually turn on connectivity, without explicit government approval,” he said. “So, um, basically Ukraine didn’t give us any advanced warning or heads up or anything, we just got the sort of urgent calls from the Ukrainian government saying we needed to turn on Crimea.”