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Elon Musk a arreté de fournir l'internet par satellite à l'Ukraine gratuitement car il avait peur de Poutine:
What Russia Got by Scaring Elon Musk
The billionaire isn’t the only one who’s been frightened into holding back help for Ukraine.
By Anne Applebaum
ne evening in September 2022, a group of Ukrainian sea drones sped out into the Black Sea, heading for Russian-occupied Crimea. Their designers—engineers who had been doing other things until the current war began—had carefully targeted the fast, remote-controlled, explosive-packed vessels to hit ships anchored in Sebastopol, the home of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. But the drones ran into a problem: Starlink, the satellite-communications system that Ukraine had been using since Russia invaded early last year, unexpectedly wasn’t working. This was a surprise to the engineers. Several people, in Ukraine and elsewhere, frantically called and texted Elon Musk, the owner of Starlink, to persuade him to enable the system.
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Musk, in turn, called Walter Isaacson, his biographer, and told him there was a “non-trivial possibility” that the sea-drone attack could lead to a nuclear war. According to Isaacson, Musk had recently spoken with Russia’s ambassador in Washington, who had warned him explicitly that any attack on Crimea would lead to nuclear conflict. Musk implied to several other people (though he later denied it) that he had been speaking with President Vladimir Putin around that time as well.
Read: Demon mode activated
These are details that you may have already heard. Many of them were first reported in May, by Oliver Carroll at The Economist. Since then, The New Yorker has also described how Ukrainian soldiers abruptly lost their access to Starlink on the battlefield during a different set of land operations. Isaacson’s version of the maritime story implies that all of the drones in the operation washed ashore that evening. But recently in Ukraine, I met some of the engineers who helped design the unmanned sea vehicles, including an engineer who was involved in the first attempt to hit Russian ships in Sebastopol. They told me that not all of the drones involved were lost. Some returned back to base, undamaged.
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Here is the part you might not have heard, or not registered: The same team launched a similar attack again a few weeks later. On October 29, a fleet of guided sea drones packed with explosives did reach Sebastopol harbor, using a different communications system. They did hit their targets. They put one Russian frigate, the Admiral Makarov, out of commission. The team believes that they damaged at least one submarine and at least two other boats as well.
And then? Nuclear war did not follow. Despite Musk’s fears, in other words—fears put into his head by the Russian ambassador, or perhaps by Putin himself—World War III did not erupt as a result of this successful attack on a Crimean port. Instead, the Russian naval commanders were spooked by the attack, so much so that they stuck close to Sebastopol harbor over the following weeks.
RECOMMENDED READING
For their own security, I am choosing not to publish the names of the engineers. I was introduced to them by a tech executive I met on a previous trip to Ukraine, when I was writing about drone operations more broadly. This team has shown off its unmanned boats before, so I am not revealing secrets when I write that they are small, black, and hard to see on the water, and have a very long range—now more than 650 miles, the engineers told me. The drones are constantly reinvented and redesigned. Some of those I saw were described as the “fifth generation.” I was given remote control of one on a distant body of water; directing it felt remarkably like playing a video game.
Like the more famous air drones, sea drones are a central important part of Ukraine’s idiosyncratic way of waging war. Unable to compete plane for plane or ship for ship against the much larger Russian military, Ukraine is using tiny, high-tech, custom-designed, and relatively cheap devices that can take large, expensive artillery, tanks, and ships out of the game. Many of these devices are built by groups that are not quite part of the military, but not exactly private either. This networked, grassroots, asymmetric response is part of how the Ukrainians hope to win the war. “This is Ukraine. We are hybrid,” one of the engineers told me.
He also told me that although his drones didn’t destroy the whole Black Sea fleet, they have had an impact on the war. Russian military ships became more cautious. Instead of physically blocking Ukrainian grain transports, as some observers expected them to do, they have stayed in port. “We made them scared,” he told me. They were happy to confirm that if a Russian warship does try to block a cargo ship carrying Ukrainian grain, they will hit it.
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Musk was wrong, in other words. Instead of inspiring World War III, the sea-drone attack helped reduce violence, protected commerce, boosted Ukrainian farmers, and maybe even ensured that some people outside Ukraine didn’t go hungry. If not for Musk’s hubris, those effects might have been felt earlier. Maybe the first attack could have eliminated more of the ships whose missiles have been killing civilians in Ukrainian cities. Maybe fewer people would have died as a result. And maybe the war, which will be over when Ukraine takes back its own territory, and ends the torment of its own citizens on that territory, would be closer to its end.
What Russia Got by Scaring Elon Musk
The billionaire isn’t the only one who’s been frightened into holding back help for Ukraine.
By Anne Applebaum
ne evening in September 2022, a group of Ukrainian sea drones sped out into the Black Sea, heading for Russian-occupied Crimea. Their designers—engineers who had been doing other things until the current war began—had carefully targeted the fast, remote-controlled, explosive-packed vessels to hit ships anchored in Sebastopol, the home of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. But the drones ran into a problem: Starlink, the satellite-communications system that Ukraine had been using since Russia invaded early last year, unexpectedly wasn’t working. This was a surprise to the engineers. Several people, in Ukraine and elsewhere, frantically called and texted Elon Musk, the owner of Starlink, to persuade him to enable the system.
ENJOY A YEAR OF UNLIMITED ACCESS TO THE ATLANTIC—INCLUDING EVERY STORY ON OUR SITE AND APP, SUBSCRIBER NEWSLETTERS, AND MORE.
Become a Subscriber
Musk, in turn, called Walter Isaacson, his biographer, and told him there was a “non-trivial possibility” that the sea-drone attack could lead to a nuclear war. According to Isaacson, Musk had recently spoken with Russia’s ambassador in Washington, who had warned him explicitly that any attack on Crimea would lead to nuclear conflict. Musk implied to several other people (though he later denied it) that he had been speaking with President Vladimir Putin around that time as well.
Read: Demon mode activated
These are details that you may have already heard. Many of them were first reported in May, by Oliver Carroll at The Economist. Since then, The New Yorker has also described how Ukrainian soldiers abruptly lost their access to Starlink on the battlefield during a different set of land operations. Isaacson’s version of the maritime story implies that all of the drones in the operation washed ashore that evening. But recently in Ukraine, I met some of the engineers who helped design the unmanned sea vehicles, including an engineer who was involved in the first attempt to hit Russian ships in Sebastopol. They told me that not all of the drones involved were lost. Some returned back to base, undamaged.
DON’T MISS WHAT MATTERS. SIGN UP FOR THE ATLANTIC DAILY NEWSLETTER.
Email Address
Sign Up
Your newsletter subscriptions are subject to The Atlantic's Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions.
Here is the part you might not have heard, or not registered: The same team launched a similar attack again a few weeks later. On October 29, a fleet of guided sea drones packed with explosives did reach Sebastopol harbor, using a different communications system. They did hit their targets. They put one Russian frigate, the Admiral Makarov, out of commission. The team believes that they damaged at least one submarine and at least two other boats as well.
And then? Nuclear war did not follow. Despite Musk’s fears, in other words—fears put into his head by the Russian ambassador, or perhaps by Putin himself—World War III did not erupt as a result of this successful attack on a Crimean port. Instead, the Russian naval commanders were spooked by the attack, so much so that they stuck close to Sebastopol harbor over the following weeks.
RECOMMENDED READING
For their own security, I am choosing not to publish the names of the engineers. I was introduced to them by a tech executive I met on a previous trip to Ukraine, when I was writing about drone operations more broadly. This team has shown off its unmanned boats before, so I am not revealing secrets when I write that they are small, black, and hard to see on the water, and have a very long range—now more than 650 miles, the engineers told me. The drones are constantly reinvented and redesigned. Some of those I saw were described as the “fifth generation.” I was given remote control of one on a distant body of water; directing it felt remarkably like playing a video game.
Like the more famous air drones, sea drones are a central important part of Ukraine’s idiosyncratic way of waging war. Unable to compete plane for plane or ship for ship against the much larger Russian military, Ukraine is using tiny, high-tech, custom-designed, and relatively cheap devices that can take large, expensive artillery, tanks, and ships out of the game. Many of these devices are built by groups that are not quite part of the military, but not exactly private either. This networked, grassroots, asymmetric response is part of how the Ukrainians hope to win the war. “This is Ukraine. We are hybrid,” one of the engineers told me.
He also told me that although his drones didn’t destroy the whole Black Sea fleet, they have had an impact on the war. Russian military ships became more cautious. Instead of physically blocking Ukrainian grain transports, as some observers expected them to do, they have stayed in port. “We made them scared,” he told me. They were happy to confirm that if a Russian warship does try to block a cargo ship carrying Ukrainian grain, they will hit it.
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Musk was wrong, in other words. Instead of inspiring World War III, the sea-drone attack helped reduce violence, protected commerce, boosted Ukrainian farmers, and maybe even ensured that some people outside Ukraine didn’t go hungry. If not for Musk’s hubris, those effects might have been felt earlier. Maybe the first attack could have eliminated more of the ships whose missiles have been killing civilians in Ukrainian cities. Maybe fewer people would have died as a result. And maybe the war, which will be over when Ukraine takes back its own territory, and ends the torment of its own citizens on that territory, would be closer to its end.
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