Renowned tech magnate Elon Musk recently disclosed that he played a pivotal role in averting a potential Ukrainian assault on a Russian Navy base in the Black Sea last year.

Musk stated that he declined a request from Kyiv to activate internet access in the Black Sea region near Crimea, which is annexed by Moscow.

In a post shared on X (formerly Twitter), Musk explained, "There was an emergency request from government authorities to activate Starlink all the way to Sevastopol. The obvious intent being to sink most of the Russian fleet at anchor." Sevastopol is the headquarters of Russia's Black Sea fleet and is located on the Crimean peninsula, which was annexed by Russia in 2014. Starlink, a satellite internet service, is operated by Musk's SpaceX and has been operational in Ukraine since Russia's invasion in February 2022.

Musk went on to emphasize, "If I had agreed to their request, then SpaceX would be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation." Musk's comments were prompted by an excerpt from an upcoming biography about him written by Walter Isaacson, which was published in The Washington Post.

According to Isaacson's excerpt, in September of the previous year, "The Ukrainian military was attempting a sneak attack on the Russian naval fleet based at Sevastopol in Crimea by sending six small drone submarines packed with explosives, and it was using Starlink to guide them to the target." Isaacson also noted that Musk had "spoken to the Russian ambassador to the United States... (who) had explicitly told him that a Ukrainian attack on Crimea would lead to a nuclear response."

Isaacson's account further revealed that Musk "secretly told his engineers to turn off coverage within 100 kilometers of the Crimean coast. As a result, when the Ukrainian drone subs got near the Russian fleet in Sevastopol, they lost connectivity and washed ashore harmlessly."

However, Musk countered Isaacson's version of events in another post, stating, "The Starlink regions in question were not activated. SpaceX did not deactivate anything."

Former Russian President and senior security official Dmitry Medvedev expressed his appreciation for Musk's actions in response to Isaacson's account. Medvedev posted on X, "Musk was concerned about a retaliatory nuclear strike. If what Isaacson has written in his book is true, then it looks like Musk is the last adequate mind in North America. Or, at the very least, in gender-neutral America, he is the one with the courage."

In a separate post on Thursday, Musk also called for a ceasefire in the ongoing conflict, urging both sides to agree to a truce. He emphasized the high cost in lives being paid by Ukrainian and Russian youth for the limited territorial gains achieved, with borders barely changing. Musk asserted, "This is not worth their lives."