Due to problems with financing, 1,300 Starlink terminals went offline in Ukraine - CNN

CNN, citing two sources familiar with the situation, writes that last week in Ukraine

There were interruptions in the operation of 1,300 Starlink satellite communication terminals.

What does it mean?

Outages began to be recorded on October 24. Most likely, the reason is problems with financing.

The outage affected a block of 1,300 terminals,which Ukraine acquired in March from a British company and used for combat operations. The publication writes that SpaceX was charging $2,500 a month to connect each of its 1,300 devices, bringing the total cost to nearly $20 million by September, a person briefed on the matter said. Eventually, they could no longer afford to pay.

Before the terminals went completely offline,In early October, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense asked its British counterparts to pay a monthly bill of $3.25 million. A batch of terminals were also replaced amid concerns that service could be cut off, the source said. The British official said that after discussions between ministries, "it was decided that military capabilities take higher priority."

"We support a number of terminals that havedirect tactical significance for the Ukrainian military in repelling the Russian invasion. We review and prioritize all new requests in terms of the impact that donations can have on supporting Ukraine in protecting its people from Putin's invasion."

Let us recall that in September SpaceX sent the Pentagona letter asking you to take on the majority of the funding for the use of the terminals. The company claimed that it had spent nearly $100 million funding Starlink in Ukraine and that it could no longer continue to do so. However, Elon Musk soon announced that he would continue financing. Despite this, according to a senior US Department of Defense official, negotiations between SpaceX and the department continue.

In a September letter from SpaceX to the Pentagonit is said that there are almost 20,000 Starlink terminals in Ukraine. At that time, by SpaceX's own admission, most of them were purchased in whole or in part through external funding, including from the governments of the United States, Poland and the United Kingdom. The letter claimed that these sources also paid about 30% of the monthly connection bill.