Fire at Starlink site in Bulgaria after suspected sabotage in Poland (dpa-international.com)

It's the Balkans mate. You pay next to no taxes, and so you also get next to no services back from the government.

The Police, education, healthcare, courts, etc. that exist, is just a skeleton crew in minimum load bearing role, not to actually solve your problem when you need it. For that you gotta pay private and costs extra.

... it means those properties are own sovereign nations, or at least autonomous zones! woo hoo, time to declare independence of People's Republic of Mars.

So to prevent a sabotage is to have several layers of security (i.e multiple fences) so you will force the saboteur to commit minor crimes like trespassing first and also slow the saboteur significantly so you can arrest him for these minor crimes.

Nationalize the infrastructure if it's that important to the public.

I’m trying to say that the logical conclusion is to shift the responsibility explicitly to SpaceX, since otherwise you have to admit the attacks are state sponsored and you have to name the perpetrator.

SpaceX is actively meddling in foreign-state wars picking whichever side they choose to support on which day. They made their bed.

Starlink providing services to a customer (which made them a target in this case) is not a matter the local government of that site needs to protect them against.

--> Is it a local governments' job to secure the local properties of e.g. Lockheed, or the job of Lockheed as a for-profit supplier to the military?

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Edit, as I expected this to be much more widely known: If you are operating in the business of critical infrastructure (for which Starlink qualifies, explicitly "digital infrastructure"), you have obligations to protect your facilities against physical and cyber attacks and have resilience and business continuity processes in place.

If you decide to operate in a business segment for critical infrastructure, it is not the governments job to secure your business, YOU have to comply to the requirements of operating in this field, and the government can audit and shut down your business if you're not in compliance.

In the EU, where this incident took place, this is well-defined under the CER-directive, and further extended for IT under NIS2 and CRE.

In the US, it's covered by CISA and CIRCIA (Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act)

It's cute when Americans assume every country's constitution is the same as their own.

I think neither private companies nor tax-payers would appreciate if the POLICE would run security for a for-profit corporation, as it means that all corporate access-permissions would de-facto be managed by the government administration (which would be financed by the taxes of citizens and other corporations...)

Also: Would be even more ironic for Starlink to now demand big-BIG-government after their CEO keeps pushing for small-government for years now. But it fits the typical "Privatize profits, socialize costs" view...

[1] https://polymarket.com/event/nato-x-russia-military-clash-in... [2] https://www.metaculus.com/questions/41238/when-will-russia-a...

Total war (all money going to the war, millions of mobilized workers, etc.) would result in an economic collapse, which Russia is trying to avoid. Aside from "inconveniences" like Yandex AI not working after a data center hit, Russia's everyday life is largely unaffected by the war (at least compared to Ukraine's) - exactly because it is avoiding total war.

If Russia were desperate enough to finally go all in and have full mobilization (millions of conscripts, all industry working around the clock building nothing but drones and missiles, etc.), why would it start by attacking random EU countries instead of Ukraine itself? So I think it's very unlikely that anything is going to happen to Europe other than sabotage here and there. Remember that Putin is a KGB agent, and they're more about targeted tactical operations than strategic chess play.

The whole "special military operation" thing was itself just a way to quickly coerce Zelensky into signing an agreement by threatening force, without total war, but it fell apart, so they had to go this war-of-attrition route

The Bulgarian PM has refused to name Russia responsible.

It does seem like they’re “testing the waters”, so to speak.

Meanwhile, the EU is still buying fossil fuels from Russia, thus paying for all this. It boggles the mind.

They literally just struck a deal with the US to export diesel, and Trump has been pressuring Ukraine (most recently by disabling Starlink) into not attacking refineries in Russia. Like, situation is the opposite of what you're saying.

EDIT: To be clearer in case you need it.

As they agreed to export means they definitely have for more than 6 months (and I believe 6 months claim is naive at best.).

And as US is pressuring Ukraine to not attack refineries means they'll be safe.

Mobilization turned out to be extremely unpopular, so they can't just do that without some exceptional cause.

That cause would be NATO attacking Russia. So they're engaging heavily in hybrid warfare, doing stuff like that in Europe. They're tying to provoke some small retaliation from NATO countries.

If that happens, they'll declare that the barbarians are at the gate, and they need a huge mobilization of troops.

But they have no interest in actually fighting against NATO. It would end disastrously for Russia, any way you slice it. Kaliningrad would be completely cut off and surrounded, their Arctic and Baltic sea routes would be hostile.

As a bonus, a potential real war with Russia would increase far-right isolationist popularity in Europe.

Personally I think this is all a play to mobilize a ton of soldiers, send them to Ukraine, and expand their occupied areas before a peace deal comes to the table.

"See guys please don't cancel your Starlink orders russia also thinks we are the enemy!"

Can you share a link? AFAIK Musk blocked Starlink for Russians, not Ukrainians.

Starlink, the commercial product, was always off limits for military operations (the type that require connectivity at 100+ MPH).

So, no, this is not one person dictating the usage.

Starlink’s Acceptable Use Policy explicitly prohibits:

- Remotely controlling or piloting any aerial drone or unmanned vehicle (unless otherwise contractually permitted by SpaceX).

- Engaging in any military activity other than approved morale/welfare/recreation programs for service members.

Incorrect. The US government limited Starshield, the military version of Starlink which it controls. SpaceX has no say.

There was some talk about having the satellites form a laser mesh but I don't think they've gone live with anything like that, so it almost always just comes back down at the nearest site.