@Mylovanov: Elon Musk ordered a blackout o...

Elon Musk ordered a blackout of Starlink coverage during Ukraine’s counteroffensive in Kherson in Sept. 2022.

SpaceX engineer Michael Nicolls: We have to do this. 100+ terminals went dark.

Drones died. Comms failed. Ukraine failed to encircle Russians at Beryslav, Reuters.

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The blackout hit Kherson and parts of Donetsk around September 30, 2022.

Ukrainian troops lost contact, lost drone feeds, and failed to encircle Russians at Beryslav.

A frontline officer: The encirclement stalled entirely. It failed.

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Musk acted days after Putin threatened nuclear retaliation in September 21. He feared Ukrainian gains would trigger escalation.

He spoke with U.S. officials. Then gave the order.

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In 2023, Gwynne Shotwell [SpaceX president] said they blocked Ukraine from using Starlink for drone strikes: There are things we can do, and have done.

She gave no details.

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Musk posted: My Starlink system is the backbone of the Ukrainian army. Their entire front line would collapse if I turned it off.

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Ukraine runs on Starlink. By April 2025, it used over 50,000 terminals. Poland bought 25,000 of them.

Kyiv used Starlink for drones, encrypted comms, and state cloud access.

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Three people with direct knowledge confirmed Musk’s role.

One said: He took the outcome of a war into his own hands.

This marked the first battlefield shutdown Musk ordered.

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Musk denied everything: We would never do such a thing. SpaceX called Reuters’ reporting inaccurate, gave no corrections, refused all questions.

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SpaceX now operates 7,900 satellites—66% of everything in orbit.

Starlink brings in $9.8 billion a year. That’s 60% of SpaceX’s revenue.

9X

Source: reuters.com/investigations…