Musk and Rubio spar with Polish minister over Starlink in Ukraine

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and tech billionaire Elon Musk have had a contentious exchange with Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, in a series of X posts on Sunday over the use of Musk's Starlink satellite system in Ukraine.

Sunday's exchange started when Musk posted that Starlink was the "backbone of the Ukrainian army".

"Their entire front line would collapse if I turned it off," he wrote.

Sikorski then responded to Musk's post, saying that Poland was paying for the service.

"Starlinks for Ukraine are paid for by the Polish Digitization Ministry at the cost of about $50 million per year," Sikorski wrote. "The ethics of threatening the victim of aggression apart, if SpaceX proves to be an unreliable provider we will be forced to look for other suppliers."

Sikorski's post caused Rubio to chime in, writing that the Polish foreign minister was "just making things up".

"No-one has made any threats about cutting Ukraine off from Starlink," Rubio wrote.

"And say thank you because without Starlink Ukraine would have lost this war long ago and Russians would be on the border with Poland right now," he added.

The Starlink terminals are key to Ukraine's army operations and have been used since the start of the Russian invasion in February 2022.