Putin allegedly asked Musk to turn off Starlink internet over Taiwan

Russian President Vladimir Putin asked Elon Musk to turn off his Starlink internet service to Taiwan as a favour to China, western security officials believe. Former U.S., European and Russian officials said the SpaceX founder had held intimate discussions with Putin, and has been in close contact since late 2022.

Two officials told the Wall Street Journal that Putin once asked Musk to stop supplying Taiwan with internet as a gesture towards Chinese premier Xi Jinping. Russia has looked to shore up its relations with China amid fallout from sanctions related to the war in Ukraine, extended to joint military drills and close trade links.

Conversations with Putin over the last two years have touched on business, geopolitical tensions and more personal topics, the WSJ reports. Russian forces were reported to be buying up Starlink terminals earlier this year to help their invasion of Ukraine.

The system has been vital to Ukrainian forces over the two-year conflict. But Russian agents are reportedly now using ‘intermediaries’ in Dubai in order to get their hands on the terminals, circumventing western sanctions imposed on Russia. House Democrats warned that Russia’s use of the system in Ukraine could raise national security concerns in March.

In a letter to SpaceX, two Democrats on the House Oversight Committee demanded information about Russia’s potential illegal acquisition of the satellite-enabled terminals, according to the Washington Post. The letter cited recent allegations from Ukrainian intelligence officials, who say that Russian troops are using Starlink terminals to coordinate war efforts in eastern Ukraine, in potential violation of U.S. sanctions.

As founder of SpaceX, Musk has cultivated close ties with U.S. military and intelligence, with access to sensitive information. The company is the primary rocket launcher for both NASA and the Pentagon. Starlink has said it does not do any business in or with Russia, and Musk has branded claims of association with Putin ‘absurd’.

Dmitry Peskov, spokesperson for the Kremlin, insisted neither Putin nor the Kremlin were in regular contact with Musk. Musk has not yet commented on the claims published in the WSJ. The Kremlin today slammed the claims in the WSJ report as ‘not true’ and ‘absolutely false’.

While Beijing remains officially neutral on the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, it has supported Putin’s claims that the war was provoked by western aggression. The U.S. this month imposed its first sanctions on Chinese firms for making weapons for Russia, accusing them of collaborating with Russian defence firms to produce drones vital to the war effort.

Taiwan is a sensitive subject, with the current administration formed from the nationalist Chinese KMT party after being forced out by the CCP in 1949. China still lays claim to the island, and maintains that the island has always belonged to China in its insistence that ‘reunification’ is inevitable.

U.S. President Joe Biden has vowed that U.S. forces would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion. Still, the Taiwanese government is steadfast that it will not cede an inch of territory. ‘(We) will not yield an inch of ground in Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu to firmly defend our homeland,’ President Lai Ching-te (pictured) said in a speech today, referring to the islands controlled by Taipei. ‘The Battle of Guningtou lets us understand that democracy and freedom should not be taken for granted, but require the joint efforts of generations to defend them,’ Lai said. Without naming China, Lai insisted that ‘any external forces’ would not be allowed to change the future of the islands.

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