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[Starver]

Another Top Russian Military Official Dead After Fall

I guess he forgot to take flying lessons...

(She, and...) One lesson only. Covering both flying and landing.

[King Zultan]

Sounds like she failed that lesson.

[bloop_bleep]

Is this the one that has been scapegoated a lot recently by the Russian authorities?

[EuchreJack]

Is this the one that has been scapegoated a lot recently by the Russian authorities?

Looks like it.

[EuchreJack]

Some valuable info about Starlink & Ukraine:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/worldcrunch.com/amp/elon-musk-starlink-frontline-ukraine-2659425881

[King Zultan]

Is this starlink thing gonna be the start of Elon's newest temper tantrum?

[heydude6]

Can’t really call it a tantrum unfortunately. Elon has gone on flights to Russia in the past so this is most likely him fulfilling his side of a backroom deal. I can’t think of what Putin could possibly offer him, so my bet is that it’s blackmail.

Or the man genuinely is dumb enough to believe Putin’s propaganda.

Edit: to give my conspiracy theory some more evidence.

Elon musk only started spewing Russian propaganda after returning from that fateful flight to Russia. The change was pretty much immediate.

The man clearly has some relationship with Russia now that he did not have when he first offered starlink

[Lord Shonus]

Musk is an egomaniac, and egomaniacs tend to be easily manipulated if you just repeatedly tell them how great they art.

[jipehog]

Is this starlink thing gonna be the start of Elon's newest temper tantrum?

That is unfair. SpaceX have been providing internet service to Ukraine since from the start of Russian invasion. Naturally their aim was to provide civilian aid to Ukraine, to help people stay connected to each other and the outside world despite Russia attempt to cut them off. Unfortunately, it became widely known that Ukrainians have leveraged the service for battlefield control, which affects SpaceX global prospect.

Naturally, Ukrainians want to generate public pressure on SpaceX to keep at it, but SpaceX as international company have other considerations, and considering that many of USA allies bulk at the idea of providing military support openly to Ukraine, you can't expect that a civilian company would, particularly a multinational company that its future prospects rely on cooperation of other major players.


Btw there is very little info on what actual measures they have taken to limit Starlink use.. According to their claims there are some 25k terminals in Ukraine and it unclear how many of them used by the military (at least 1.3k), it would be hard to determine which is which.. the only concrete info I know is the limit on maritime use.

Edited, added bold

[anewaname]

Putin's style is "threaten them face-to-face until you see some fear in their eyes, then start the meeting", like when he brought a large dog into a meeting with little Merkel.

From a Guardian article:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The FSB also revived another old KGB/East German Stasi tactic: what the exasperated American ambassador in Moscow calls “house intrusions”. Over a period of nearly four years FSB agents frequently broke into the Moscow flat where I lived with my wife and two small children. They left a series of ridiculous clues to show that they had been there. These included open windows, central heating wires cut, family photos deleted from laptops, and – most amusingly – a sex manual in Russian, helpfully left beside my bed.

Putin could have started the meeting with compliments about Musk's family then showed him photos of Musk's family relaxing somewhere where no photos should have been taken. Because, wouldn't you change your mind under threat like that? And how many rich people has Putin had killed?

If you're going to assume there was an agreement made, why not consider that it could have involved coercion?

[EuchreJack]

Honestly, Putin could have just threatened to declare Starlink satellites enemy combatants, and used that theory to blow them up.  Russia has satellite killing weapons, and Musk needs those satellites to maintain his superiority. Starlink is his most successful business, in which he has successfully obtained a monopoly. He can move those satellites to limit competitors, and nobody can do anything about it. Except Putin and his satellite killing tech.

To be clear, I dunno how many satellites Putin can actually kill.  However, due to how space debris scatter and how dangerous they are to satellites in general, one intentional satellite destruction could take out a whole constellation.

[jipehog]

Honestly, Putin could have just threatened to declare Starlink satellites enemy combatants, and used that theory to blow them up. 

Unlikely, that would lead to an escalation with USA.


Otherwise, don't forget that Musk have many prospect around the world, including in China.

[ChairmanPoo]

Don't forget that Starlink gets money from the DoD. Musk's a b***h and he has shown ill-will towards Ukraine in the past regarding Starlink. But on the other hand, since he's a b***h I doubt he'd dare to risk angering the US goverment by getting in bed with Putin. I suspect whatever restrictions are being applied to Starlink have been goverment-vetted.

[jipehog]

What musk gets from DoD is peanut compared to their business world wide. And whatever you think of Musk there is few in the world whose contribution to Ukraine have been bigger.

[Madman198237]

He can move those satellites to limit competitors, and nobody can do anything about it.

To be clear, I dunno how many satellites Putin can actually kill.  However, due to how space debris scatter and how dangerous they are to satellites in general, one intentional satellite destruction could take out a whole constellation.

This is not how satellite orbits/restrictions and flight planning/legal allocation of communications bands works. Musk cannot interfere with competitors by physically blocking them.

I'd doubt all that many satellite-killing weapons are active in Putin's arsenal, and while there are a lot of Starlink satellites they can move themselves and are pretty low, so debris should reorbit quickly...but we don't want to happen.

More importantly, as noted by jipehog, SpaceX is a US company and those satellites are therefore the property of a US company. Taking military action against them would represent an act of war.


I wish SpaceX would just say "we don't condone military use of our systems" and then just...not even try to prevent it. But I understand why they're going to try to avoid military use of their equipment, because they don't want to lose markets that might object to such things even if this particular military use is totally justified.