Science and Technology

Russia’s War in Ukraine

Understanding the conflict four years on.

Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s Situation Report.

Here’s what’s on tap for the day: Elon Musk’s geopolitical fights in Ukraine and India, U.S. Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle resigns, and why Trump’s diesel deal won’t have much of an impact on fuel prices.

Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s Situation Report.

Here’s what’s on tap for the day: Elon Musk’s geopolitical fights in Ukraine and India, U.S. Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle resigns, and why Trump’s diesel deal won’t have much of an impact on fuel prices.

Elon Musk keeps reminding us why so many people are uncomfortable with the degree of influence he holds over global geopolitics.

Nowhere is that truer than in Ukraine, which alleged this week that the billionaire’s company SpaceX had restricted some access to its Starlink satellite internet service—capping the speed at which Ukrainian weapons can remain connected to the internet in Kyiv’s ongoing war against Russia.

Musk claimed he wasn’t behind the restrictions, saying in a post on X that Ukraine’s military uses a military-grade version of Starlink called Starshield that is overseen by the U.S. government and that any decision to impose restrictions would have come from the Trump administration, not him. U.S. President Donald Trump has been pressuring Ukraine to stop strikes on Russia’s energy sector, as high gas prices cast a shadow over the upcoming U.S. midterm election. SpaceX and the Pentagon did not immediately respond to requests for comment from SitRep.

But the Ukraine brouhaha served as an acute reminder of how closely interlinked Musk and his businesses are with the U.S. government and how dependent multiple countries are on the whims of the world’s richest man. As Rishi has previously written, Starlink has been indispensable for the Ukrainian military and people, allowing the country to stay connected and in the fight since the early days of the war.

But Musk has also sometimes expressed........

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