Weekly megathread for news/updates/discussion of Russian invasion of Ukraine - October 13

‘The hell with it’: Elon Musk says SpaceX will fund Starlink internet in Ukraine
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/15/the-hell-with-it-elon-musk-says-spacex-will-fund-starlink-internet-in-ukraine

Well this was all a nice reminder of what you risk when you rely on the whims of the billionaire class.

Musk threatens to stop funding Starlink internet Ukraine relies on in war (Washington Post)

Elon Musk said Friday that his space company could not keep funding the Starlink satellite service that has kept Ukraine and its military online during the war, and he suggested he was pulling free internet after a Ukrainian ambassador insulted him on Twitter.

[...]

Musk, the world’s richest man by Bloomberg estimates, tweeted from the United States that his company SpaceX does not want reimbursement for its past expenses in helping Ukraine. But, he wrote, it “also cannot fund the existing system indefinitely and send several thousand more terminals that have data usage up to 100X greater than typical households. This is unreasonable.”

[...]

While SpaceX at points has portrayed Starlink service in Ukraine as an entirely charitable venture, it has not, in fact, covered the entire cost. The Post reported in April that the U.S. government had quietly paid millions to SpaceX for equipment and transportation costs.

A senior adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sounded a conciliatory note Friday and expressed confidence that a deal would be reached to maintain Starlink service.

“Let’s be honest. Like it or not, @elonmusk helped us survive the most critical moments of war,” adviser Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted. “Business has the right to its own strategies.” He added that Ukraine “will find a solution to keep Starlink working. We expect that the company will provide stable connection till the end of negotiations.”

[...]

Before the peacemaking foray that set off an online firestorm, and Musk’s latest tweets, SpaceX had already warned the U.S. Department of Defense in a letter dated Sept. 8 that it could no longer afford funding the Starlink system in Ukraine, CNN first reported Thursday.

The report said the letter asked the Pentagon to cover a new request from Ukraine and costs for the rest of the year, acknowledging that others, including Kyiv’s allies, had also helped fund the terminals sent so far.

A senior U.S. defense official confirmed late Thursday that Musk had privately urged the Pentagon to pay up. The official said there was no comparable system with such widespread applicability. The bill is likely to run into the hundreds of millions of dollars over the next year, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

[...]

Musk said Friday that the Starlink operation in Ukraine had cost SpaceX $80 million and that the price would reach $100 million by the end of the year, including the expense of providing terminals, maintaining satellites and ground stations, and other items. “We’ve also had to defend against cyberattacks & jamming, which are getting harder,” he wrote.

[...]

The Ukrainian military has become dependent on Starlink to quickly share information with senior commanders. Roman Kovalenko, a company commander in the 72nd Mechanized Brigade fighting on the front line in the eastern Donetsk region, said units use radio less now because they’re not as dependable.

“I honestly have no idea how the communication between us will look like here without any Starlink service,” he said.

The satellite internet is especially helpful for the Ukrainian military’s expanded use of drones. With a stable connection, air reconnaissance units can watch their drone feed, allowing artillery forces to identify targets and correct their fire in real time. Before that, Kovalenko said, infantry soldiers in trenches had to locate the artillery strikes themselves, which was less effective and put them in danger.

“I’d say the effectiveness of our work without Starlink would drop something like 60 percent or more,” Kovalenko said. “And we would have to use more ammunition, which we are now saving.”

Russia is grabbing men off the street to fight in Ukraine (Washington Post)

In cities and towns across Russia, men of fighting age are going into hiding to avoid the officials who are seizing them and sending them to fight in Ukraine.

Police and military press-gangs in recent days have snatched men off the streets and outside Metro stations. They’ve lurked in apartment building lobbies to hand out military summonses. They’ve raided office blocks and hostels. They’ve invaded cafes and restaurants, blocking the exits.

[…]

The raids in Moscow and St. Petersburg have been deeply controversial, in part because the cities have suffered comparatively few casualties in Ukraine. The burden of fighting has largely been borne by small ethnic groups and poorly educated men from impoverished rural regions.

Russian warplane crashes near apartment building, killing 13 (AP)

A Russian warplane crashed Monday into a residential area in a Russian city on the Sea of Azov after suffering engine failure, leaving at least 13 people dead, three of whom died when they jumped from upper floors of a nine-story apartment building to escape a massive blaze.

A Su-34 bomber came down in the port city of Yeysk after one of its engines caught fire during takeoff for a training mission, the Russian Defense Ministry said. It said both crew members bailed out safely, but the plane crashed into a residential area, causing a fire as tons of fuel exploded on impact.

After hours of combing through the charred debris of the building, authorities said 13 residents, including three children, were found dead. Another 19 were hospitalized with injuries.

Vice governor of the region, Anna Menkova, said three of the four victims died when they jumped from the upper floors of the building in a desperate attempt to escape the flames, according to the RIA-Novosti news agency.

The authorities reserved emergency rooms at local hospitals and scrambled medical aircraft. Over 500 residents were evacuated and provided with temporary accommodations.

The Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin was informed about the crash and dispatched the ministers of health and emergencies along with the local governor to the site. Yeysk, a city of 90,000, is home to a big Russian air base.

Surveillance cam videos posted on Russian messaging app channels showed a plane exploding in a giant fireball. Other videos showed an apartment building engulfed by flames and loud bangs from the apparent detonation of the warplane’s weapons.

The Su-34 is a supersonic twin-engine bomber equipped with sophisticated sensors and weapons that has been a key strike component of the Russian air force. The aircraft has seen wide use during the war in Syria and the fighting in Ukraine.

Monday’s accident marked the 10th reported non-combat crash of a Russian warplane since Moscow sent its troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24. Military experts have noted that as the number of Russian military flights increased sharply during the fighting, so did the crashes.

The photo accompanying the article is crazy:
https://storage.googleapis.com/afs-prod/media/fbd8f4064130443db50911e7b98dc70c/1000.jpeg

Iran calls Western allegations that it supplied Russia with drones ‘disappointing,’ calls for peaceful resolution of war
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/19/iran-denies-allegations-that-it-supplied-russia-with-drones.html

One of the underlying anxieties of Russia's invasion of Ukraine is how it might spill over into a broader war involving more countries. After Ukraine's successful strike on the Crimea bridge, Russia had a sharp shift in tactics, involving more much missile and drone strikes on Ukrainian cities -- notably involving a large number of what the press has been describing as drones of obviously Iranian origin. At this point Iran seems to be using the Russian response of deny, deny, deny.

In recent days, Moscow has carried out several devastating missile and drone strikes against what Ukraine said were civilian targets as well as critical infrastructure such as energy facilities. The Kremlin has repeatedly denied that it uses Iranian-made drones in Ukraine and that it targets residential and other high civilian areas.

...

The three nations — also members of the original 2015 Iran nuclear deal — say that by providing Russia with drones Iran has violated a U.N. Security Council resolution. The resolution, known as 2231, prohibits the transfer “of all items, materials, equipments and goods and technology” from Iran to another nation unless it is approved in advance by the U.N. Security Council on a case-by-case basis.

...

Iran’s U.N. representative sharply denied Western allegations that Tehran supplied Moscow with a fleet of drones for use in Ukraine.

...

He added that the claims are “unfounded and unsubstantiated” and said that the West was mounting a disinformation campaign against his country. Iravani, who took no questions from reporters, also said the baseless allegations were “disappointing.”

Ukraine looks anxiously towards its northern border, and a fresh influx of Russian troops into Belarus