Funeral held for people killed in Russian market attack, missile strikes continue as Blinken visits Ukraine
PBS NewsHourSep 19, 2023
Musk Under Fire for Stifling Ukrainian Attack on Crimea
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Image copyright: Ukrainian Defense Ministry [via Wikimedia Commons]
The Facts
Elon Musk — the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and owner of the X social media platform previously known as Twitter — has this week come under fire for stifling a Ukrainian attack on Russia's Black Sea fleet in the peninsula of Crimea.
It comes after CNN, citing passages of a new biography on Musk penned by Walter Isaacson, reported that the entrepreneur ordered his engineers to shut off his company’s Starlink satellite communications network near the coast of Crimea as an attack with explosive-laden submarine drones was taking place. As a result, the drones "lost connectivity and washed ashore harmlessly," Isaacson said.
The Spin
Pro-Ukraine narrative
In preventing Ukraine from striking Russia's Black Sea fleet, Musk allowed those ships to launch further missile attacks on Ukraine, thus allowing them to inflict more destruction and death upon Ukrainian civilians.
Pro-Russia narrative
Musk was quite right to prevent Ukraine from attacking Russia's Black Sea fleet in Crimea. Such an attack would've been a major escalation of the war and would've forced Russia to respond accordingly.
