The Moscow government said SpaceX's internet services “cannot be officially used here in any way.”
Elon Musk denied selling Starlink internet service to Russia after Ukraine claimed it was being used by the Russian military on the front lines of the war.
“A lot of misinformation is claiming that SpaceX is selling Starlink terminals to Russia. This is completely false,” Musk, who heads SpaceX and several other companies including Tesla, told X on Monday. I mentioned it in my post.
“To our knowledge, Starlink has never been sold directly or indirectly to Russia.”
Moscow also rejected Kiev's claims that Starlink terminals were smuggled into Russia and were being used “systematically” in Russian-occupied Donetsk.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Starlink has not been certified for use in Russia.
“It cannot be officially supplied here, and it is not officially supplied here either,” Peskov told reporters on Monday.
Ukraine's military intelligence agency GUR announced on Sunday that intercepted conversations between Russian troops revealed that Starlink terminals were being deployed to troops operating near the towns of Kryschyvka and Andriivka.
GUR spokesman Andriy Yusov said on state television that Starlink terminals were entering Russia through parallel imports, rather than through official channels.
Starlink said in a post on X last week that it “does not do any business with the Russian government or military” and that its service “does not work” in the country.
The Ukrainian military credits Starlink with allowing it to communicate, gather intelligence, and coordinate attacks more quickly and safely than by radio or telephone.
Musk came under intense scrutiny last year after it emerged that he had rejected Ukraine's request to activate Starlink to support a surprise attack on the Russian fleet in the Crimean port of Sevastopol.
Musk's rejection of the request, first reported in excerpts from Walter Isaacson's biography about the billionaire, was because Musk was “explicitly complicit in serious acts of war and escalation of conflict.” This is because he said, “It will happen.''