Ukraine is looking to Elon Musk for help in resolving its growing vulnerability to Russian missile attacks, but the world’s richest man appears to be resisting entreaties.
Ukraine is seeking to make use of Musk’s Starlink network for an audacious new tactic. President Volodymyr Zelensky’s government has reportedly approached Musk for permission to use the technology to target Russian missile launchers that are being used to strike Ukrainian cities. Such launchers are causing increasing damage and casualties as Kyiv’s interceptor stockpiles run low.
But the SpaceX and Tesla CEO is reluctant to approve the request, the Financial Times reported. Musk has allowed Ukraine to use the Starlink system – based on the largest constellation of satellites in space – on its own territory for purposes such as frontline communication and guiding drones.
But he is yet to give the green light for its use on Russian territory, having previously cited concerns over the potential for nuclear escalation.
It’s an impasse that reflects Musk’s mixed record of support for Ukraine during the war, and highlights the risks for Kyiv in depending on the mercurial billionaire.
The South African’s relations with Ukraine have been a bumpy ride over more than four years of war. He granted Kyiv free use of Starlink early in the war, and recently cut off Russian troops from the system after talks with Kyiv’s former Defence Minister, Mykhailo Fedorov. That gave Ukraine a brief advantage before Vladimir Putin’s forces adapted.
But Musk has also repeatedly insulted Zelensky, branding him a “disgusting, massive graft machine feeding off the dead bodies of Ukrainian soldiers”. The tech boss has appeared to support Russia’s claims to occupied territories. He has also limited Ukraine’s ability to use Starlink, such as in a planned attack against Russian ships around Crimea in 2023.
Elon Musk has called for a ‘pragmatic’ peace agreement (Photo: Alain Jocard/AFP)Mykola Bielieskov, a researcher at the government-run National Institute for Strategic Studies in Kyiv, said that Musk has been “erratic” during the war. Despite this, his power makes him too important to ignore.
“Sometimes he is helpful and sometimes a major headache,” said Bielieskov. “I think he intuitively understands the need to help Ukraine so Russia is checked. Plus this aid has been a major advertisement for Starlink. But he has been prone to being manipulated by threats of nuclear escalation.”
The researcher believes Musk was “probably manipulated by Putin” in reported calls between the two men in 2022, around which time the X CEO posted an outline of a peace plan on the platform that reflected Russian positions, including the annexation of Crimea and Ukraine committing to neutrality.
“He decided to test himself as a dealmaker when he launched direct contacts with Russia, but failed,” said Bielieskov.
After Donald Trump’s election in 2024, with Musk as a close advisor, the two men frequently attacked Zelensky and described him as a freeloader of US aid and an obstacle to peace. But despite such low points in relations, Musk has made himself “indispensible” to Ukraine’s cause and the government has no choice but to work with him, said Bileieskov.
Military analysts agree that Starlink gave Ukraine a valuable asset on the battlefield.
Professor Marina Miron of the War Studies department at King’s College London, said the Russian army respected this system as “force multiplier for command and control, reconnaissance and drone operations”.
Russian forces also demonstrated its value by targeting Starlink terminals, developing electronic warfare systems to combat it, and using it themselves until access was cut off, she added.
Aftermath of Russian missile strikes on Kyiv on 19 August (Photo: Kostiantyn Liberov/Libkos/Getty)Miron said Musk’s record and comments during the war did not show him to be a supporter of Ukraine, noting his support for political forces that oppose aid to Kyiv, such as the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
For his part, Musk has maintained his support of Ukraine. In 2024, he said: “I still very much support Ukraine, but am convinced that massive escalation of the war will cause great harm to Ukraine and possibly the world.”
He has since called for a “pragmatic” peace agreement that would not require Russia to withdraw from occupied Ukrainian territories.
“There’s a lot of wishful thinking with people saying that Russia should completely withdraw, but this is not realistic,” he told The Economist in a recent interview, adding that Ukraine is “not going to retake those (occupied) territories. It’s not going to happen”.
Musk’s agenda is unclear from his “messy and controversial” record of interventions during the war, said Miron, suggesting that he could yet seek to leverage his relationship with Fedorov – who this week called for elections in Ukraine – against Zelensky.
Max Hess, a Eurasia specialist at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, said dependence on Musk puts Ukraine in an awkward position and Kyiv may need to develop its own solutions to the Russian missile blitz.
“It is very difficult for Ukraine that it is so dependent on such a controversial character and one with such strong opinions about how best to run policy himself,” he said. “The normal order of things would be that the US government would make those kind of decisions itself.”
“What I would say is that Ukraine has a proven ability to adapt to difficult circumstances and to be able to carry out targeted strikes within Russia without the help of significant external actors. And we know from its public statements is working on developing its own technology… I wouldn’t rule out that Kyiv comes up with a surprise.”
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