00:00After his foray into US politics, most politicians are too scared to stand too close to Elon Musk.
00:06So why is it that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky just gave him one of Ukraine's highest honours, the Order of
00:14Freedom?
00:15If there was a ranking system for the most divisive people on the planet, Elon Musk would surely rank somewhere
00:21near the top.
00:22Whether you see him as the man who supercharged the electric vehicle industry, or the man who built the ugliest
00:28pickup truck on Earth,
00:29there is rarely middle ground and always very strong opinion at either end of that spectrum.
00:36But there is one thing about Musk that makes him very important to Zelensky.
00:40He owns the satellite internet network Starlink, and that is kind of a big deal in Ukraine fighting back against
00:48Russia's invasion.
00:49Starlink has become a critical tool for Ukraine's military operations, especially when it comes to guiding drones and ballistic missiles.
00:57Kyiv counts on satellite networks, connectivity and communication coordination on the battlefield, while Russia is locked out of the same
01:06service in Ukraine.
01:07It's been a big help to Ukraine, and they want more help now from Musk.
01:12At the moment, Starlink does not operate over Russian territory.
01:16If Musk was to switch that back on, Ukraine could use it for more precise drone attacks, targeting Russia's military
01:23and energy infrastructure far from the front lines.
01:27It's something we want to talk more about with Doug Mattery, Director of Internet Analysis of Kentik, an internet monitoring
01:35company.
01:36Doug, it's great to get the chance to talk to you.
01:38We've laid out some of the cases as to why Ukraine needs Musk.
01:42I feel like the more pertinent question might be, why does Musk need Ukraine?
01:48What does he get from a good relationship with Ukraine, do you think?
01:53That's a good question.
01:54It's hard for me to get into his head.
01:56I think, you know, at the outset of this conflict, when Russia invaded Ukraine, there was a kind of a
02:02worldwide response and sympathy to Ukraine.
02:06And he, I think, went along with that and donated a number of terminals and service to Ukraine that proved
02:16to be very critical to their war effort.
02:19It's a cynical way of asking off the top, and I appreciate it.
02:22It's a tricky question from any distance.
02:24But it's a way of asking, why has Ukraine given Musk this award right now?
02:33My area is not in analyzing the politics of it, which I think there could be some in this case.
02:40I might just mention that, you know, for Starlink has been an interesting subplot in the conflict that's been going
02:47for four and a half years now.
02:49It's, you know, initially was used to connect some disconnected towns due to last-mile infrastructure damage due to airstrikes.
02:59But its main role has been as military command and control and drone communications, as you mentioned in your lead
03:08-in.
03:09And that's been critical.
03:11Now, the Russians, up until February this year, had started to use the same services, Starlink, to do the same
03:19things back against the Ukrainians.
03:22And at the request of the Ukrainian government, Starlink did disable any Starlink terminals that were in Ukraine proper that
03:31weren't on a whitelist directory that had been registered with the Ukrainian government.
03:37And as a result, from our perspective, and we have a lot of internet traffic data that we work with,
03:41we saw a substantial drop in traffic of probably a mix of both Ukrainians who had terminals that were not
03:49registered,
03:50as well as Russian military units that were making a lot of use out of the service that could no
03:57longer use it.
03:58And there were some tactical gains that Ukraine achieved in its aftermath.
04:04Just to tie a bow around it, in terms of the official reason given by the Ukraine government, for those
04:10watching at home,
04:10as published on the presidential website of Ukraine is, the words of Ukraine were,
04:16for outstanding personal contributions to the protection of human lives and freedom,
04:20and to the development of relations between the peoples of Ukraine and the United States of America.
04:27One other relationship I'm interested in, Doug, as to whether you can add your voice to this,
04:33is the former Defence Minister Fedorov fired by Zelensky.
04:37He was close to Musk.
04:39Do you buy the story that Musk getting this award is part of patching up that relationship?
04:46Do you know and do you understand Fedorov and Musk to be that close?
04:51Maybe. Maybe that's a motivation for it.
04:55I would think that there's probably a mix of politics as well as sincere gratitude.
05:02You know, setting the politics aside, it really has been a very important service that Ukraine has made use of
05:11in the conflict.
05:13You know, in the first year, there was some notions that were around that the whole country was somehow connected,
05:19stayed connected through Starlink, and that really was never true.
05:22Most of the country's internet service goes through fibre optic cables that run along the ground and heads to the
05:28West.
05:29That has always been true.
05:30That will always be true.
05:32But the role of Starlink has been critical for the military effort and the war effort.
05:36And that's inside of Ukraine.
05:38Do you have much feel for how much difference it would make to Ukraine's ability to hit targets inside of
05:45Russia
05:45or just communicate with their various weapons if Musk agrees to turn on Starlink over Russian territory?
05:52I mean, they seem to be coping all right without it.
05:56But do you have a feel for how much difference that would make if that next step is taken by
06:00Musk and Ukraine?
06:01Well, that would enable them to do really long-range drone bombings into Russia.
06:06And so my understanding is the pushback from Musk is that this is, you know, he does not want to
06:13be a part of an escalation.
06:15You know, he's kind of intertwined with this conflict no matter what.
06:20But, you know, that holds some water as far as, like, not wanting to be a party to, you know,
06:28making this a broader war.
06:30But it does also kind of raise the question around, you know, you've got an individual that owns the service
06:38that has to be convinced of allowing the service to be used for these particular military applications.
06:46And that's something quite unique that we haven't seen in recent decades.
06:52So Musk's Starlink dominates the business of internet from space and SpaceX dominates the business of getting all types of
07:00payloads into space, including satellites.
07:03Nine out of every 10 kilograms goes on SpaceX rockets into orbit.
07:07Russia, Doug, as we know, is one of the very few nations that can reliably get payloads into space, satellites
07:15as well.
07:15Can you tell us, how close is Russia to bypassing this problem, this internet problem, by building their own network?
07:25Yeah, the Starlink system.
07:29So Starlink wasn't the first company to do satellite-based internet service.
07:35It's been around for decades.
07:36But it really is a technologically superior in every way service than everything else that's been out there.
07:44How fast could the Russians replicate that?
07:47I mean, we're seeing this in different places.
07:49Europe wants to have their own version of Starlink.
07:51Taiwan wants to have their own version of Starlink.
07:53There's a lot of countries that want to have their own.
07:59They do have the advantage to be able to have their own launch capabilities, but there is a lot of
08:05sophistication.
08:06Just one thing being like the inter-satellite length, the routing of traffic between satellites in space is something only
08:14Starlink's ever achieved as far as satellite communications constellations.
08:20And it's a remarkable thing.
08:23I don't know how much faith to put in.
08:26Maybe that's years away, or maybe that's never going to happen.
08:28You know, we have other competitors.
08:32OneWeb is out there.
08:34You've got Project Kuiper from Amazon trying to compete.
08:38Those are well-established projects that have a lot of funding that have been added for a long time, and
08:45they are still a long way behind it.
08:47So if someone's starting out now, you know, that launch capability isn't going to help you with the technologies on
08:57board the satellites that would have to be recreated.
09:00I think they're a long way away from that.
09:02Yeah, that was going to be my next question that I might have had to put the tinfoil hat on
09:05for, is that perhaps Musk might prefer Russia doesn't start building an alternative to Starlink,
09:11that he might be happy if Ukraine can keep hitting the Soyuz facilities with drones and missiles as they did
09:16last week.
09:17But as you see it, that Russian building, the build-out of an internet from space is still in its
09:23infancy, to say the least.
09:27Yeah, I don't think Elon Musk is too worried about competition from a Russian version of Starlink, to put it
09:33bluntly.
09:34Doug, great to get your input today.
09:37Director of Internet Analysis of Kentik, an internet monitoring company.
09:42Doug, it's been great to get the chance to talk.
09:44Thanks so much.
09:46Thanks.
