**US and Polish Leaders Clash on Twitter**
Three top officials – US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, tech billionaire Elon Musk, and Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski – had a heated exchange on the social media platform X over Ukraine’s use of Musk’s Starlink satellite system.
The argument started when Musk said that turning off the Starlink system would be like collapsing Ukraine’s entire front line. Sikorski responded by saying that Poland was paying for the service, which costs around $50 million per year. He added that if SpaceX was not reliable, they would look for other suppliers.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio jumped into the conversation and accused Sikorski of “making things up”. He said that no one had threatened to cut off Ukraine’s access to Starlink. Rubio also thanked Musk for providing the service, saying that without it, Ukraine might have lost the war against Russia long ago.
Musk later responded to Sikorski, calling him a “small man” and telling him to be quiet. He said that Poland only paid a small fraction of the cost of the service and that there was no substitute for Starlink.
**What is Starlink?**
Starlink is a system provided by SpaceX that offers high-speed internet to remote and underserved areas around the world, including war zones. It has been crucial to Ukraine’s army operations since the Russian invasion in February 2022. There are tens of thousands of Starlink terminals in the country, with up to 500 purchased by the US Department of Defence in June 2023.