European Union countries are discussing covering the costs of providing Ukraine with Starlink internet, a Lithuanian official told Politico, which comes as Elon Musk’s rocket company SpaceX continues to pay for it but is looking for external funding to foot the bill for the service.
“I figured that it’s probably way better to have this as a contractual agreement between, let’s say, a coalition of countries that could purchase a service from Mr. Musk, the Starlink service, and provide it to the Ukrainians and keep on providing it to Ukrainians,” Landsbergis told the outlet.
He said the topic was raised by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell and officials from other countries joined in the discussion, which he said was at an early stage.
Landsbergis said in an earlier post on Twitter that continuing to provide Ukraine with Starlink internet, which has reportedly been a big factor in some of the country’s battlefield successes against Russian forces, was “too important to be left in the hands of one private individual.”
“Let’s find a way to form a coalition of Ukraine’s allies to pay for Starlink, or let’s find an alternative supplier. Lithuania is ready to contribute,” Landsbergis said in the post.
SpaceX has not returned a request from The Epoch Times for confirmation of the contents of the reported letter to the Pentagon.
While Starlink delivered an information lifeline to darkened swaths of the war-torn country, it also served as a link to enable Ukrainian military drones to target Russian tanks and positions more effectively.
