Musk and Rubio spar with Polish minister over Ukraine’s use of Starlink

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Elon Musk have clashed with Poland’s foreign minister over the use of the tech billionaire’s Starlink satellite internet system in Ukraine.

Musk said on X that Ukraine’s “entire front line” would collapse if he turned the system off. Radoslaw Sikorski responded, saying his country paid for its use in Ukraine and a threat to shut it down would result in a search for another network.

Rubio dismissed Sikorski’s claims and told him to be grateful, while Musk called him a “small man”.

The exchange appeared to lead to Polish PM Donald Tusk calling on his country’s allies to show respect for their weaker partners, rather than arrogance.

Starlink’s system is part of SpaceX’s venture to provide high-speed internet to remote and underserved areas. It has been used extensively by the Ukrainian military.

Sunday’s exchange started when Musk posted that Starlink was the “backbone of the Ukrainian army” and that “their entire front line would collapse if I turned it off”.

Sikorski then responded, saying that Poland was paying for the service.

“Starlinks for Ukraine are paid for by the Polish Digitization Ministry at the cost of about $50 million per year,” Sikorski wrote. “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.”

In response, Rubio said Sikorski was “just making things up… no-one has made any threats about cutting Ukraine off from Starlink”.

“And say thank you because without Starlink Ukraine would have lost this war long ago and Russians would be on the border with Poland right now,” he added.

Musk later responded to Sikorski’s post calling him a “small man”.

“Be quiet, small man. You pay a tiny fraction of the cost. And there is no substitute for Starlink,” he wrote.

On Monday morning Polish Prime Minister Tusk, without specifying who or what he was referring to, wrote on X: “True leadership means respect for partners and allies.

“Even for the smaller and weaker ones. Never arrogance. Dear friends, think about it.”

The Starlink terminals are key to Ukraine’s army operations and have been used since the start of the Russian invasion in February 2022.

There are tens of thousands of terminals in the country, including up to 500 bought by the US Department of Defence in June 2023.

Starlink is one of, if not the most, reliable means of communication for Ukrainian troops.

It is used for reconnaissance drones, which stream troops real-time battlefield data that allows for quick reactions to attacks.

This compensates for Ukraine’s disadvantages in manpower, as the military does not need to keep large numbers of soldiers along the entire defensive line.

Drone footage also helps to direct artillery fire and identify targets for kamikaze drones.

Requesting evacuation or providing the exact location of a target would also be much slower and more complicated without Starlink, as regular radio stations may be out of range, jammed or compromised.

Additional reporting by Abdujalil Abdurasulov