Multi-billionaire Elon Musk finally backtracked on Saturday and said he would keep the Starlink internet network that his company SpaceX provides to Ukraine operational. On Friday, he had threatened to cut it, judging that his company could no longer follow the costs, and demanded that the American government henceforth bear the bill.
At least 11 people died on Saturday (October 15th) and 15 others were injured in a shootout on Russian military ground in the Belgorod region, bordering Ukraine, said the Russian Ministry of Defense, which qualified the “attack” incident. In a statement, quoted by Russian news agencies, the ministry said that “two citizens” from the former USSR opened fire with automatic weapons during an exercise. “The two terrorists were killed during a return fire,” the ministry added.
This Saturday, the French Minister for the Armed Forces, Sebastien Lecornu, announced to Le Parisien that France was going to train “up to two thousand Ukrainian soldiers” on its soil. These soldiers “will be assigned to our units for several weeks”, he explained, emphasizing that the training will cover three levels: “general combatant training”, “then, on specific needs reported by the Ukrainians, such as logistics”, and “a third level of training on the materials provided”. He also wanted to recall that this device was done “by respecting the rules of law, without ever being in co-belligerence”, France being “not at war”. Paris is also going to deliver Crotale anti-aircraft defense systems to Ukraine.
“A very serious situation persists in the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk”, in the industrial basin of Donbass, declared, Saturday evening, Volodymyr Zelensky in his daily message. “The hardest part is near Bakhmout, like the previous days. We are still holding our positions,” added the Ukrainian president, a few days after the pro-Russian forces announced that they were approaching this city.
Russian-backed separatist forces in Ukraine’s Donetsk region said on Thursday they had taken two nearby villages, Opytin and Ivangrad. For weeks, Russian troops have been pounding Bakhmout, a city that once had 70,000 inhabitants, in the hope of seizing it. For weeks, Ukrainian troops have been recovering large swaths of territory in southern and eastern Ukraine.
Elon Musk has changed his mind. The SpaceX boss finally announced on Saturday that he would continue to fund the Starlink Internet network in Ukraine. “Never mind… even if Starlink still loses money and other companies receive billions of taxpayer dollars, we will continue to fund the Ukrainian government,” the multi-billionaire tweeted.
On Friday, however, he assured that his company no longer had the means to continue to finance the network in Ukraine, and asked the American government to take over. According to SpaceX, the bill for the next 12 months reaches 400 million dollars. The announcement of a probable withdrawal of the Starlink satellite service had caused a great stir in the Ukrainian ranks, who need the internet to coordinate their troops and direct their drones.
The military partnership between Moscow and Minsk is taking shape. The first Russian soldiers of the new military government arrived in Belarus this Saturday. This week, Russia announced the creation of a new force to defend the borders of Belarus, supposedly threatened by Ukraine. Last Monday, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko accused Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine of preparing “terrorist” attacks and an “uprising” on its territory, thus justifying the deployment of a military group. Emmanuel Macron reacted by saying that Lukashenko “would have problems” if he became more involved in the war in Ukraine on the side of Russia.
Ukrainian conductor Yuri Kerpatenko was shot dead by Russian soldiers “in his own house” in Kherson, a city in southern Ukraine occupied by the Russian army. This “brutal murder”, revealed Friday by the media, was committed because of “Kerpatenko’s refusal to cooperate with the occupiers”, added the ministry in a press release. In fact, he refused to conduct a philharmonic concert that the occupiers wanted to give in the city, on the occasion of the International Day of Music.
