Why Elon Musk Is Giving Zelenskyy the Silent Treatment Over Ukraine’s Starlink Plea

On Aug. 26, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a decree awarding an Order of Freedom medal, one of the nation’s highest state honors, to Elon Musk. The medal is the latest and least subtle instrument in a monthslong campaign to persuade the SpaceX CEO to let Ukrainian drones use Starlink over Russian territory, which would allow Ukraine to hunt the mobile launchers now hitting its cities. A week has passed, and Musk has not acknowledged it yet.

SpaceX has allowed Starlink inside Ukraine, including Russian-occupied territory, since the war broke out in February 2022, but Musk has refused the use of Starlink in Russian airspace, arguing that it would escalate the war and that the two sides should settle.

The urgency is not hard to explain. “Winter is coming. Ukraine is low on anti-ballistic missile defenses,” Mikhail Alexseev, a political scientist at San Diego State University, told Observer. “Russia exploits this weakness and pounds Ukraine almost daily with deadly barrages of ballistic missile attacks.”

“The shortage of anti-ballistic missile defenses is hard to overcome within the next few months,” Alexseeve added, noting that extending Starlink access to Russian territory would help Ukraine destroy Russia’s ballistic missile launchers. “Time indeed is of the essence.”

“It appears that Elon Musk is primarily worried that authorizing a new use of Starlink by Ukraine would be perceived as a highly escalatory act by Russia,” Victoria Samson, chief director of space security and stability at the Secure World Foundation, a private foundation, told Observer. 

Zelenskyy is making the case himself because he no longer has anyone to make it for him. Mykhailo Fedorov, Zelenskyy’s defense minister and Ukraine’s primary correspondent with Musk, was dismissed in July over disagreements on war strategy with commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskyi. 

Zelenskyy has already tried the obvious intermediary. At the White House on July 28, he asked President Donald Trump to intercede with Musk. Trump declined. Now, he has taken to making the case in public.

“[Musk] may change his mind once he sees further arguments,” Zelenskyy told reporters on Aug. 22, adding that allowing Starlink in Russia will reduce “precisely those capabilities that Russia is relying on to drag out the war.”

Musk has periodically expressed his views on the war in Ukraine. He proposed a peace deal as early as October 2022, just eight months after Russia invaded Ukraine. He called for new elections in Crimea under the United Nations’ supervision.

Musk’s ties to Putin

Musk cannot favor one side over the other in this war, as he also has high-level contacts in Moscow.

The Wall Street Journal reported in October 2024 that the SpaceX boss has had “secret conversations” and “regular contact” with Russian President Vladimir Putin himself since at least the end of 2022. The two discussed personal topics, business and geopolitical tensions, according to the Journal, citing U.S., European and Russian officials. The report further noted that Putin even asked Musk not to enable Starlink over Taiwan as a favor to Chinese President Xi Jinping, a Putin ally. A Kremlin spokesman denied the Journal’s account, insisting Musk and Putin have spoken only once. Starlink isn’t currently available in Taiwan. 

Another Putin ally, Russian billionaire and politician Suleyman Kerimov, is reported to own at least a 1 percent stake in SpaceX through a trust managed by Citigroup, Bloomberg reported in early 2025, despite sanctions imposed upon him by the U.S. in 2018 for aiding Putin’s invasion of Crimea.

Musk’s alleged ties to the Kremlin prompted some U.S. Democrats to call for an investigation into these links, given Musk’s status as a major defense contractor with top-secret security clearance. 

“Typically, our defense contractors, and that’s what Musk wants to be, do not deal with Russia in any way, shape or form—and the same rule should apply to him,” Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, said in May 2025. 

Reed and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, another top Democrat on the Committee, warned that Musk’s links to Putin “pose serious questions regarding Mr. Musk’s reliability as a government contractor and a clearance holder.” 

More recently, The Guardian reported that Musk’s family foundation financed a trip to Moscow in June on behalf of Tommy Robinson, a far-right British activist. Robinson reportedly met with Russian business officials during his trip.

In July, SpaceX filed an application with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to deploy up to 100,000 additional Starlink satellites in low-Earth orbit (LEO). SpaceX presently operates about 10,800 LEO satellites and has already received FCC approval for about 4,000 more.

Musk is asking Washington for permission to multiply his constellation nearly tenfold in the same season a head of state is asking him for a favor.

SpaceX and Zelenskyy’s office could not be reached for comment.