Author: Dafydd Townley, Teaching Fellow in International Security, University of Portsmouth

There has been a great deal of speculation about whether Elon Musk might deny Ukraine access to his satellite network system, Starlink – and what might happen if he did. Musk fuelled talk of a possible shutdown when he posted recently that: “My Starlink system is the backbone of the Ukrainian army. Their entire front line would collapse if I turned it off.” He later denied that he would ever do so or use the satellites as a bargaining chip. But along with the temporary US pause in some military intelligence sharing (which is now due to be lifted), the…