In today's #vatniksoup, I'll talk about Starlink. First I thought I would just add this to the second part of the @elonmusk soup, but it is such a complex topic that I think it requires a thread of its own.
1/22
On 26 Feb 2022, Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine @FedorovMykhailo tweeted Musk about providing Starlink to replace the Internet services destroyed by the Russians.
2/22
Starlink responded fast, activating country-wide service and delivering the first Starlink terminals (the device that establishes the connection to the satellites, thus providing internet access) already on the 28th of Feb.
3/22
Building (it is still incomplete) and running Starlink is by no means cheap: in order to provide high-speed connection to its users, the company needs to launch a lot of satellites.
4/22
SpaceX has launched 41 rockets with Starlink satellites over the past year, and each launch costs around 25-30 million USD + the cost of the satellite. And dealing with war-related issues like Russian cyber attacks & jamming increases the SpaceX cost of operating the system.
5/22
In addition to this, Ukraine needs a lot of terminals to provide internet access to both civilians and military personnel. A lot of these terminals are also destroyed on the battlefield. Usually, these terminals come with a monthly fee,but Ukrainians don't have to pay this..
6/22
...during the war. The terminals donated to Ukraine by volunteers and other countries may still have to pay these fees, though. It is not known how much money the company currently makes from these monthly fees.
7/22
That's not all: you also need ground stations that distribute all that data to the internet via high-bandwidth connections to telco companies that need to be paid for the service.
To conclude: getting Starlink data to internet costs a LOT of money to SpaceX.
8/22
By May 2022, Starlink was used by 150 000 Ukrainians on a daily basis. It was used, among other things, to deliver president Zelensky's daily broadcasts online. It was also used during the siege of Mariupol to report the dire conditions inside the city.
9/22
Ukrainian Army has always used Starlink for military purposes. According to The Times, the Ukrainian military was using the service to connect its drones used to attack the Russian forces. It was also used to coordinate artillery fire.
10/22
Scholar Franz-Stefan Gady (@HoansSolo), who visited the front lines in Ukraine, has said that the Ukrainian military operations are hugely dependent on having internet access, and one Ukrainian soldier said that "Starlink is our oxygen".
11/22
By Apr 2022, SpaceX had sent over 5000 terminals to Ukraine, of which they donated 3667 (the rest were bought by USAID). The company's support to Ukraine is estimated to be worth about 100 million USD, but it allegedly no longer offers the service for free - these costs...
12/22
...are now mostly paid by a mix of countries including the US, Germany, France and Poland. Also, many of the terminals going to Ukraine are now crowdfunded and donated by private donors, see this thread for more info:
In May 2023, Pentagon declared that it has agreed to buy Starlink terminals for use in Ukraine. They declined to offer any additional information regarding the price, scope or the timeline of the delivery of the equipment.
14/22
In Feb 2023 SpaceX revealed that it implemented restrictions against integrating Starlink terminals directly into weapons like naval kamikaze drones. Previously, Ukraine had attacked Russian vessels by using this type of naval drones in Novorossiysk, Russia.
15/22
SpaceX/Elon considered this a potential "escalating action" & restricted the direct military use of Starlink on weapons systems. Before this, SpaceX President stated that Starlink was never supposed to be "weaponized",as it was originally intended strictly for civilian use.
16/22
The company didn't object to it being used for military communication - just against integration into weapons like Ukraine did with the naval drones. There is also a good business-related explanation for this restriction: if they were allowed to be integrated into weapons..
17/22
...systems, Starlink terminals could be classified as "dual-use products" (technology that can be used for both civilian and military applications), which would restrict their export and use in some countries.
18/22
To conclude: Musk's SpaceX has made substantial financial contributions to support Ukraine. Just by providing Starlink, the company has helped Ukraine's war effort significantly, and they've also donated plenty of Starlink terminals to the country.
19/22
Allowing their use in weapon systems like kamikaze drones, albeit being useful to Ukraine, could be extremely bad for SpaceX's business ventures. President Zelensky has thanked Musk for providing Starlink service to Ukraine, and @FedorovMykhailo called Elon Musk...
20/22
.."one of the biggest private donors of [Ukraine's] future victory."
But this donation shouldn't render @elonmusk (or anyone else) immune to criticism,and his rather uninformed hot takes on Crimea & Donbas should be discussed.And they will be,in part two of his #vatniksoup.
21/22
I want to thank Jakub Janovsky aka @Rebel44CZ for providing his expertise and help on this topic.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce an American radio host and propagandist, Scott Horton (@scotthortonshow). He’s best known for blaming Russia’s genocidal war against Ukraine on the US, and for publishing a 700-page book full of Kremlin propaganda.
1/23
Most of you probably remember Scotty from this recent episode of Piers Morgan Uncensored, in which he was schooled for his revisionist propaganda by Ukrainian volunteer and activist Anastasiya Paraskevova (@UkrainianAna).
2/23
Let’s start with the obvious - Scott Horton is a hardcore Kremlin apologist who sees nothing wrong with what Putin does, but strongly condemns anything that Ukrainians do to defend themselves. For Horton,the enemy is the US and all of its allies. The way this works is that…
3/23
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll discuss the sad (but funny) state of Finnish vatniks. After Russia launched their full-scale invasion against Ukraine, the Finnish pro-Kremlin/conspiracy theorist scene experienced a dramatic devaluation and hasn’t been able to bounce back since.
1/20
I often get asked about the current state of the Finnish vatnik club, and there’s usually not much to report.
It’s not because these people have stopped, but because today their work has only comedic value.
So here’s the latest:
2/20
Master vatnik and traitor Johan Bäckman has relocated to Russia, and he was recently given a Russian citizenship. It’s obvious that Johan was recruited by Russia’s intelligence agencies a long time ago. He’s still producing videos on YouTube on his…
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce a Romanian politician and conspiracy theorist, Călin Georgescu (@calin_georgescu). He’s best-known for his pro-Kremlin and conspiratorial views, running for president of Romania, and doing it by only campaigning on TikTok.
1/25
Georgescu has a doctorate in pedology (a branch of soil science), and held various positions in Romania’s environment ministry during the 90s.
Between 1999-2012, he was a representative for Romania on the national committee of the United Nations Environment Program.
2/25
He was proposed as Romania’s prime minister in 2011, 2012 and 2016 by Romanian far-right parties, but he rose to international infamy in 2024, when he ran for president of Romania independently and obtained the most votes (22,95%) out of all candidates in the first round.
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce a Canadian journalist and alleged Soviet/Russian spy, David Pugliese (@davidpugliese). He’s best-known for his articles about “Ukrainian Nazis”, and for allegedly being a spy for both the Soviet Union and later Russia.
1/21
Several months ago I was anonymously sent a pile of documents from the mid-80s originating from the KGB archives in Kyiv. These documents outlined a KGB recruitment into “Stuart”, or David Pugliese who “works in foreign mass media” and who is…
2/21
..“studied with the perspective of possible operative use”. Another document described “Stuart’s” contact “Ivan”, who allegedly became his handler.Some have speculated that “Ivan” is Fred Weir, a correspondent of the Christian Science Monitor.He’s lived in Moscow since 1986.
3/21
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce an American far-right social media personality, Nicholas J. Fuentes (@NickJFuentes). He’s best-known for his white supremacist, misogynistic and antisemitic rhetoric, and for being the poster boy for the so-called incel movement.
1/17
Like so many from the white supremacist movement, Fuentes dropped out of university after his freshman year. He studied introductory international relations, which apparently made him a geopolitics expert. Nick was introduced to the white supremacist movement at an…
2/17
..early age - he took part in the infamous Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville,Virginia. In 2017, Fuentes launched his political talk show “America First”. Initially the show was aired on Trump-aligned Right Side Broadcasting Network, but it was dropped after the rally.
3/17
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll discuss foreign malign influence operations during the 2024 US elections. As in 2016 and 2020, these recent elections were also a target of massive disinformation and hacking campaigns originating mostly from Russia and Iran.
1/17
First of all, my opinion is that these influence operations alone didn’t affect the elections so much, that they actually made a difference.
Unlike in 2016, Trump’s win over Harris was clear and these short-term campaigns didn’t really change that much this time.
2/17
Yet, many of these online campaigns attacked both Harris and Walz on various social media platforms. Especially Walz became a big target after his nomination, and many Russian efforts attempted to defame him.