said<\/a> it had evidence that the terminals were being used on a \u201csystematic\u201d basis by Russian troops, accusing Moscow of \u201csmuggling\u201d them into the country.<\/p>\nStarlink, owned by Elon Musk\u2019s SpaceX, is a network of satellites in low Earth orbit that can provide internet to remote locations, or areas that have had normal communications infrastructure disabled.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy companies have probably done more to undermine Russia than anything,\u201d Musk said during a streamed session on X, criticising US funding to Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Musk maintained that SpaceX had taken away two-thirds of Russian space launch business and that \u201cStarlink has overwhelmingly helped Ukraine\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt cannot be officially supplied here and is not officially supplied here,\u201d Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday.<\/p>\n
\u201cAccordingly, it cannot be officially used here in any way,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The system is not active in Russia, meaning even a device inside Russia could not connect.<\/p>\n
But Kyiv has accused Russian troops of using the device across the frontlines in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
\u201cStarlink is freely available in Russia. Compared to last year, now the use of Starlink in the Russian army on the front line has become more systematic,\u201d a spokesperson for Ukraine\u2019s intelligence agency said on state television. He said it would not \u201creveal all the details\u201d of its claims.<\/p>\n
Ukraine itself has widely used Starlink to ensure communications and connectivity for its troops during the two-year war.<\/p>\n
Musk called reports SpaceX had sold Starlink terminals to Russia \u201ccategorically false\u201d in a post on his X social media platform.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo the best of our knowledge, no Starlinks have been sold directly or indirectly to Russia,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The Ukrainian spokesperson said Kyiv accepted that Starlink was not \u201cofficially being sold to the Russians\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said Russia bought them through \u201cparallel imports, which is essentially smuggling\u201d.<\/p>\n
Since Moscow invaded Ukraine and was hit with Western sanctions, it has set up a network of traders and intermediaries in third countries to get hold of banned goods and other products no longer available inside Russia.<\/p>\n
It is not the first time Kyiv and Musk have clashed over Starlink.<\/p>\n
Last year the Tesla and SpaceX tycoon rejected a request to activate the network in the Crimean city of Sevastopol to support a Ukrainian attack on Russia\u2019s naval fleet.<\/p>\n
He said SpaceX would have been \u201cexplicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation\u201d if he had agreed. He also said his company could not indefinitely fund the service in Ukraine, before agreeing to maintain the connections.<\/p>\n
Published in Dawn, February 14th, 2024<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KYIV: The Kremlin rejected Ukraine\u2019s claims on Monday that Russian troops fighting on the frontline were using Starlink internet terminals. Kyiv\u2019s military intelligence agency said it had evidence that the terminals were being used on a \u201csystematic\u201d basis by Russian troops, accusing Moscow of \u201csmuggling\u201d them into the country. Starlink, owned by Elon Musk\u2019s SpaceX, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59853,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2024\/02\/14084327d78f38b.jpg?r=091214","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[192],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-islamabad-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59852\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}