Ukraine’s vice prime minister called on SpaceX billionaire Elon Musk to help the embattled nation with communication satellites on Saturday, as they faced a third day of assaults from Russia.
“@elonmusk, while you try to colonize Mars — Russia try to occupy Ukraine! While your rockets successfully land from space — Russian rockets attack Ukrainian civil people! We ask you to provide Ukraine with Starlink stations and to address sane Russians to stand,” Mykhailo Fedorov tweeted, later sharing the post on his Telegram account as well.
Russia’s assaults on cities across Ukraine have left parts of the country with internet outages.
Through his company SpaceX, Musk has launched thousands of Starlink satellites into Earth’s orbit, increasing broadband service in select areas across the globe. The satellites help carry large amounts of information rapidly to any point on Earth, avoiding the need for fiber-optic cables.
The satellites could provide data links to areas of Ukraine that have lost internet access as a result of the attacks.
“In 2022 modern technologies are one of the best response to tanks, rockets and missiles. I’ve addressed to the biggest tech giants to support the sanctions for Russian Federation. We asked them to help us stop this outrageous aggression on our people!” Fedorov wrote in another Saturday post.
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As Ukraine endures air and ground assaults from Russian forces, the country has also been subject to cyber attacks this week.
On Wednesday, the websites of Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry, Cabinet of Ministers, and Verkhovna Rada (Parliament) appeared offline for several hours after being the target of a massive distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack. The attack also impacted some banks.
Saturday morning, Fedorov also took to Twitter to call on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Netflix and Google to block Russia-related accounts and access in response to the deadly attacks.
“We’ve also asked @Netflix for the support. We appealed to them to block the Russian Federation’s access to Netflix and shut off Russian content. We believe you do care. Let’s stop this disgraceful bloody war!” he tweeted.
Russia’s assault on its Western neighbor began Thursday after Russian President Vladimir Putin declared war and announced a “special military operation” to demilitarize and “denazify” Ukraine under the pretense that Russia was defending itself.