Kyiv: Ukraine’s parliament and its speaker engaged in a taunting exchange with billionaire Elon Musk on Monday following his social media post mocking President Volodymyr Zelensky’s requests for wartime assistance from the West.
Elon Musk, the owner of SpaceX, a provider of Starlink satellite communication services vital for Ukraine’s defense effort, has occasionally irked Kyiv with his statements since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February last year.
Early on Monday, Elon Musk posted a meme on his platform X (formerly Twitter), featuring Zelensky with the caption: “When it’s been 5 minutes and you haven’t asked for a billion dollars in aid.”
Throughout the war, the Ukrainian leader and his top officials have implored their allies to secure billions in military aid to withstand and counter Russia’s invasion.
In response, the speaker of Ukraine’s parliament, Ruslan Stefanchuk, issued his own post on X, stating, “The case when …(Elon Musk) tried to conquer space, but something went wrong, and in 5 minutes, he was up to his eyeballs in trouble,” seemingly referring to SpaceX’s failed rocket launch in April.
Ukraine’s parliament, on its official X page, accused Elon Musk of disseminating Russian propaganda and shared its own version of the meme, depicting Musk with the caption: “When it’s been 5 minutes, and you haven’t spread Russian propaganda.”
Mykhailo Podolyak, a Ukrainian presidential adviser who has previously criticized some of Musk’s statements, posted on X that remaining silent or adopting an ironic stance toward Ukraine played into the hands of Russian propaganda.
“Unfortunately, not everyone, even if they are significant media figures, but thousands of kilometers away from the war’s epicenter, can grasp the daily bombardments and the cries of children losing their parents.”
Earlier in the war, Ukrainian officials criticized Elon Musk for suggesting they should consider ceding land for peace, a stance firmly rejected by Kyiv.
Zelensky visited the United States in September, meeting top officials in an effort to secure further aid. Over the weekend, aid for Ukraine was excluded from a temporary funding measure passed by the US Congress to avert a government shutdown.
The United States has been Ukraine’s largest single donor since Russia’s full-scale invasion last year, providing tens of billions of dollars in military and financial assistance.
