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All the moves of Ukraine with Starlink and Microsoft on the internet and the cloud

2 years ago babelfish

All the moves of Ukraine with Starlink and Microsoft on the internet and the cloud

After the tussle over the past few weeks over the supply of Starlink satellites from Elon Musk's SpaceX company, Ukraine continues to trust the American entrepreneur but is also looking for other suppliers. Close agreement with Microsoft on the cloud

Ukraine still trusts Elon Musk to continue providing internet access through his space company SpaceX's Starlink satellite system despite a fluctuation last month.

This was declared on Thursday by one of his deputy prime ministers, Mykhailo Fedorov, in Portugal for the largest technology conference in Europe, the Web Summit in Lisbon. On the occasion, Fedorov explained that Kiev has discussed Starlink directly with Musk and is confident that the owner of SpaceX, Tesla and now also Twitter will not close the service in Ukraine.

In the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 26, Mykhailo Fedorov, Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine, asked Musk on Twitter to send Starlink terminals to the country. Fedorov said broadband Internet service "keeps our cities connected and emergency services save lives" in the event of outages. Musk promptly accepted the request . Yet Musk tweeted last month that SpaceX could no longer afford to provide the service in Ukraine indefinitely, only to turn around two days later and say it would continue to provide free Starlink in Kiev.

However, the incident must have stirred the government in Kiev, aware that it is relying on the generosity of a private company (even if the shipment of the terminals is not the result of SpaceX's exclusive "charity"). And Ukraine is looking for new suppliers. “One of the reasons I came to the Web Summit is also to look for new partners and continue to develop and engage with new partners,” said Fedorov.

And just today, the US tech giant Microsoft announced that it will extend technology support to Ukraine for free until 2023.

All the details.

THE POSITION OF THE UKRAINIAN DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER

Starlink has "worked, is working and will certainly work in Ukraine," Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Federov, who also heads the digital transformation ministry, said at a press conference.

“Elon Musk has talked about it publicly and we talked about it with him, so we don't see any problems in that regard,” Fedorov reassured.

WHAT HAPPENED BETWEEN KIEV AND MUSK

In mid-October, Musk announced that he would no longer donate his Starlink satellites to Ukraine. In particular, the American businessman had turned to the Defense Department asking him to bear the expensive costs of the satellite network which has become essential for the communications of the Kiev army and, consequently, for the progress of the conflict.

But the "threat" to pull the plug on the communications network was promptly withdrawn by the billionaire who confirmed that Starlink remains free for Ukraine.

Around the same time, some Ukrainians complained of internet service outages near the front, while Musk also angered Ukrainian officials by promoting a peace plan under which Ukraine would hand over some territory to Russia.

Fedorov said Russian attacks that knocked out 40 percent of Ukraine's energy infrastructure in October increased the importance of maintaining communications systems.

EVERYTHING IN PLACE WITH STARLINK SATELLITES

Meanwhile, Elon Musk reassured that he will continue to assist Ukraine with the Starlink satellite network which ensures efficient communications. "Who cares … Even if Starlink is still at a loss and other companies get billions of dollars from the taxpayer, we will continue to support the government of Ukraine for free," the tycoon tweeted.

BUT IN THE MEANING AGREEMENT WITH MICROSOFT

But now Kiev is looking for new partners.

"Communication is really critical," Fedorov said at a joint press conference with Microsoft President Brad Smith, who announced about $ 100 million in additional technology aid for Ukraine throughout 2023, bringing his full support. for Ukraine to over 400 million since the start of the crisis in February.

"This will allow the government and other organizations in Ukraine to continue to manage their services and serve Ukrainian citizens through Microsft Cloud and our public data centers across Europe," said Smith.

Microsoft said it will extend technology support to Ukraine for free until 2023.

This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/tutte-le-mosse-dellucraina-con-starlink-e-microsoft-su-internet-e-cloud/ on Fri, 04 Nov 2022 06:05:43 +0000.