Elon Musk's Starlink company has raised satellite Internet tariffs for residents of Ukraine. The company began to send corresponding letters to subscribers.
According to the Telegram channel Insider UA, Ukrainian subscribers receive letters in the mail with the following content: “Starlink satellite Internet provider has increased the cost of services for Ukrainians from $60 to $75 per month. The cost of the service will increase from December 29. And the terminal and antenna now cost not $500, but $700.”
After the outbreak of the war, Starlink satellite Internet terminals began to operate in Ukraine. In the face of attacks on the communications infrastructure, the network is essential to the country's defense capability, allowing the Armed Forces to fight and stay connected even when cellular communications and Internet networks are destroyed. To date, about 20,000 Starlink satellites have been transferred to Ukraine. According to Elon Musk, "the operation cost SpaceX $80 million and will exceed $100 million by the end of the year."
In mid-October, Musk told the Pentagon that he would no longer be able to fund a satellite network in Ukraine. SpaceX asked the US Department of Defense to bear these costs, since his company has already lost several tens of millions of dollars. A few days later, Musk announced that he would “continue to fund the government of Ukraine for free.”
“To hell with it… Although Starlink is still losing money and other companies are getting billions of dollars from taxpayers, we will continue to fund the government of Ukraine for free,” Musk wrote at the time.