Ukraine has handed Elon Musk its Order of Freedom. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed the decree, which went up on the presidential website on Wednesday, and the award lands while Kyiv is asking SpaceX for something much bigger: permission to run Starlink over Russian territory.
The decree thanks Musk “for outstanding personal contributions to protecting human life and freedom, and for developing relations between the peoples of Ukraine and the United States of America.”
Musk switched Starlink on in Ukraine soon after Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, at a time when ordinary communications were being damaged or knocked out. Ukrainian units now lean on it for battlefield coordination, and drone pilots use the satellite link to stay connected to aircraft flying long distances.
The ask: Starlink over Russia
Ukrainian forces can use the network across Ukraine, including areas Russia occupies. SpaceX has kept it restricted inside Russia itself. Kyiv wants that changed so it can fly longer-range drone missions against Russian military and economic targets, among them the launch sites for the ballistic missiles that keep hitting Ukrainian cities.
Zelenskyy has said he was told Musk opposed the idea because he saw it as a “major escalation” of the war. That may be changing. Ukraine has “started to receive a different, more encouraging feedback,” he said. In his view, wider access could blunt the capabilities Russia is using to drag the war out.
A relationship with friction in it
This is not the first time Starlink has shaped the war. Earlier this year SpaceX agreed to disable thousands of “grey-market” terminals that Russian forces were using in occupied Ukrainian territory. The request came from then-Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, and the cutoff reportedly disrupted Russian military communications.
Fedorov was dismissed in July in a wider government reshuffle. A reported mix-up over whether SpaceX had cleared Ukraine to use Starlink for operations inside Russia fed the tensions around him. Zelenskyy has said inaccurate information from the Defence Ministry about SpaceX’s position contributed to an awkward exchange with US President Donald Trump, who accused him of misleading him.
Fedorov had been Kyiv’s main contact with Musk.
Sources
- Ukraine awards Elon Musk high state honor as it seeks to expand Starlink access
- Elon Musk gets Ukraine’s top honour as Zelensky pushes for Starlink access over Russian territory | Today News
