"Elon Musk, while you try to colonise Mars – Russia tries to occupy Ukraine!" Mykhailo Fedorov had previously tweeted to the Tesla and SpaceX founder. Russian rockets attack Ukrainian civilians while your rockets successfully land in space! We request that you provide Starlink stations to Ukraine and address sane Russians to stand."
"Starlink service is now active in Ukraine," the South African-born technology billionaire responded several hours later. More terminals are on their way."
Starlink is a space-based system of approximately 2,000 satellites that SpaceX has been developing for years in order to provide internet access to underserved areas around the world, with the company referring to its dishes as terminals.
Internet service has been disrupted during Russia's invasion of Ukraine, according to the UK-based NetBlocks, with connectivity to Ukraine's main provider GigaTrans dropping to less than 20% of normal levels in the early hours of Friday.
Mr Fedorov, Ukraine's digital minister, thanked Mr Musk and separately thanked Ukraine's ambassador to the US, Oksana Markarova, for "quick decisions related to authorisation and certification that allowed us to activate Starlink in Ukraine."
Maye Musk, Mr Musk's mother, called the development "wonderful!" Kimbal, his younger brother, shared the "now active" post with the caption: "Go team Ukraine! Putin must be deposed. Either now or later, it's either now or later. I'll say it now. "Are you on board with me?"
It comes as Western allies announced new sanctions aimed at Russia's financial system.
In a coordinated move, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, and the European Union announced that certain Russian banks would be barred from using the Swift global payments system.
Simultaneously, they announced "restrictive measures" to prevent the Russian Central Bank from deploying its international reserves "in ways that undermine the impact of our sanctions."
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