Musk blames Trump for 'sabotaging' Ukraine's Starlink

Outside America, perhaps, the penny is just beginning to drop. Here's Piers Morgan and President Zelensky. Do you think he has deliberately turned the speed down on Starlink to damage it? I'm sure that they knew what they did. Absolutely, because it was 1 a.m., so 1 at night. He asked about this, and Starlink was blocked, of course, by SpaceX and, of course, by the United States. Now, if Donald Trump is prepared to use the dominance of American technology as a political weapon overseas to reward or to punish, as happened to Ukraine over Starlink, where does this end? American tech is deeply dug into almost every aspect of the modern British state. Palantir in the NHS and the police and in the Ministry of Defence. Amazon Web Services in HMRC and the intelligence services. Google Cloud again in British Defence and Intelligence. Microsoft in the Met Office and indeed almost everywhere else. And look around, wake up, with the spread of artificial intelligence controlled by US companies, this is just the beginning. So far, more than half by value of the money spent by the British government on AI has gone to American firms. Now, independent companies who have grown up inside a friendly country, perhaps, no bother. But if Trump or some future US president decides to use them to impose his will, and maybe there's a circle of tech bros close to the White House, I'm just guessing here, but for the sake of argument, people like Elon Musk, what happens to the Royal Navy or the tax man or the cancer hospital if an angry someone in Washington decides it's time to pull the plug on the British? if you don't control your own wiring, if you don't have any real grip on the technology you depend on, well, bye-bye the last shreds of independence. I think that's something we should all be thinking about right now. But right now, it's not as urgent as the horrendous consequences of the Starlink decision for ordinary families in Ukraine just waiting for the next drone or missile attack. It seems that that decision, thank God, has been reversed, at least temporarily. but it suggests that the lives of people on the other side of Europe are now hostage in a game of macho geopolitics. This is a time for courage. Let's just remember what Poland's foreign minister, Radek Sikorski, said to us about Putin's mood on this show last night. He's trying to do to Kiev what Adolf Hitler did to London, and the British were not intimidated, and I don't think the Ukrainians will be either. So let's get a view from the new front line. Next, I'm joined by Lisa Yasko, a Ukrainian MP and a member of the Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs. Lisa, thank you very much for joining LBC tonight. First of all, it's unclear exactly what has happened around Starlink and Starshield, but what has been the effect on Kiev and on Ukraine last night and the night before? This is the hardest days in all these five years for many of us, including myself. I hardly slept. All ballistic missiles reach their goals. There are thousands of drones. We've never seen thousands. We've always seen hundreds, but not thousands. Now thousands are flying over all Ukraine. and this is very hard because at this stage we have the air sirens all the time so just before logging into you there was another air siren but the one before just was a few minutes before which means that the drone is flying somewhere not very far and explain to people how Starlink helped protect you from this situation basically we could identify with all the technologies where Russians are striking and we had a few very bad situations recently where actually probably that's because of the lack of the Starlink signal and also because of the lack of the intelligence that was coming information from some of our partners that we were not informed in a few minutes or seconds when the ballistic missiles were flying. And as a result, there was terrible, again, situations with the victims, with the ruined lives. And this is such a routine for us right now. And people are exhausted because it's not the first or second or even not the third year of the war. It's five years. Five years. Five years. And President Zelensky said earlier today that he felt betrayed by President Trump. Is that a general feeling? Do you feel betrayed by the Americans and by President Trump? I think ordinary Ukrainians have this feeling of betrayal for quite a long time. In 2022, most of us in Ukraine believed that the West or anyone would never allow all these atrocities, the war crimes that Russia is committing to happen. But after everything started, this terrible aggression, of course, many people lost all that illusions. And at this stage, we know that we don't have Patriots. We don't have Starlink. We may not have enough information from intelligence, which means that every day it's just a survival, real survival. We don't know whether we wake up tomorrow alive or not. And this is not just big words. This is the reality for most of us. And Lisa, what would you say to the likes of President Trump or Elon Musk or one of the leaders of the Alternative for Deutschland in Germany who are all saying you can't win this war now? It's time to get any kind of peace you can with Putin. And if Zelensky won't do it, he must be pushed aside and there must be a leader who can. It's not about Zelensky, it's about Ukrainian people who would never and never give up our dignity. And yes, we pay a huge price. We paid and we continue to pay. But any intimidation whether our president will be removed doesn't really affect us. Because whether it would be Zelensky or someone else, if he has or she needs to represent the will of Ukrainian people, Ukrainian people know who is the aggressor. Ukrainian people want to end this war, but not at all possible cost. We want a full end. We don't want Russia to be able to have this war again in one month's time, in one year's time, in 10 years. At this stage, we don't see any sign that Putin wants it. It's the opposite. It sounds to me as if you agree with Radek Sikorski, the Polish foreign minister who was on the show yesterday, and he said Putin will be no more successful in breaking the will of the Ukrainian people or people in Kiev than Adolf Hitler was when he launched the Blitz against London. Absolutely. We are not intimidated. We are exhausted, but that does mean that we are intimidated. And is it beginning to feel to you as if Putin and Trump are on the same side? Well I think for most of us we never seen really Trump being on Ukrainian side he was always playing this card of American interests but at this stage definitely this is absolutely disgraceful what happens that this pressure on Ukraine to end war just bringing Russia many benefits with this diesel deal and many other things this is disgraceful we just we like if you if you declare that you are for the democratic values and for some common sense and humanity it should never happen uh Lisa Yasko Ukrainian MP uh our thoughts are with you stay safe and thank you very much indeed for talking to me tonight because these are grim times for ordinary people in Ukraine but what about that wider point. Can we trust American technology everywhere inside our system? And even if we can't, is it perhaps too late? Let's hear from Lord Kim Darroch, Britain's former National Security Advisor and Ambassador in Washington, who joins me now in the studio. Kim, thank you very much for coming in. What do you feel about that general point that if Trump can pull the lever on Starlink because he's angry with Zelensky, and I know there's an argument about whether this has really happened or not but if he can if he's prepared to do that all of us who rely day to day on this new technology all of it coming from the states have to have start to think again if the American administration really are behind what has happened to Starlink and this sudden delay in Starlink's information reaching the Ukrainians which means that Ukrainian civilians are left defenseless because they can't see the missiles coming, then it's both dramatic and it's a terrible thing to be happening. I mean, I've seen a report this afternoon where the White House apparently are claiming that there's a technical malfunction. It's nothing to do with them ordering this. Yeah, yeah. But do they have the power to do this? Well, what you would say is that money talks, as you know, in American politics, and big companies give money to re-election campaigns. and the tech companies gave a lot of money to, some of them gave some money to Trump's campaign and especially to all those celebrations when he won the election. And they don't do it just out of goodwill. They expect a return. They expect influence. They expect leverage. So that link can be very close. I guess what I'm talking about, this may be the first time that I can think of where the leading technology transforming the world all around us as we speak is fusing with American political power to impose itself on the world. Yeah, I mean, that could be, Andrew, what we're seeing. As I say, there will be people who will deny that. But, look, it's credible because these technology companies, I mean, they have incomes way bigger than most countries. They have vast power. And one of the reasons why J.D. Vance was picked as the running mate for Trump was he is very close to the titans of Silicon Valley. Peter Thiel, Palantir, is one of his mentors, maybe his main mentor. I mean, if you look forward to post-28 when if Vance runs and wins, you can imagine the links between Silicon Valley and the White House will be even closer in those circumstances. Which means, in a sense, Peter Thiel, who has spoken quite openly about being in a post-democratic age, and he doesn't admire much of the democratic traditions of the west could be in charge of our NHS it's a thought isn't it i mean these guys in silicon valley while some of them outwardly are very liberal minded people what is most important to them is that governments don't step in with a lot of regulation restricting what they do in that sense they want complete freedom and they will they will i think to use certainly in american politics you can make money uh you know money can help you achieve that objective i'm putting this in a slightly provocative way right at the beginning i said perhaps it's already too late uh as a former national security advisor is it possible at this stage to Vance-proof our security and intelligence and military well look palantir are quite big in the british system too um and so maybe it is too late maybe it is too late but um and we use Starlink as well don't we i think we do i think i think everyone uses Starlink i think you have to use Starlink i think but um yeah no we're all a bit i mean we don't have in europe our own technology in these areas at least not yet they've kind of got us by the short and curly yeah maybe maybe we can develop our own stuff uh and maybe we should be thinking to do that in the same way the americans want to make their own microchips because uh or semiconductors because they want it all to come from taiwan but we're a long way away from that at the moment another story that's broken tonight i must ask you about because tim shipman of the spectator is reporting that jonathan powell the current national security advisor is on the edge of leaving or quitting yeah jonathan is a is a good friend of mine i've known him for many years he was uh the main the leading advisor chief of staff in in the blair time when i worked there i think he's done a quite brilliant job as national security advisor he has particular influence over the u.s administration which is crucial given the stuff that's going on in ukraine and in iran so if he were to leave it would be a big loss uh but i've been hearing for a while i haven't seen jonathan recently he's far too busy um but but it's a really it's the hardest i ever worked in the government system and if he's he's done it for a good while in considerably more turbulent circumstances than i did so it must be exhausting he may simply be tired out and that's why if he wants to go that might be it but there's also an interesting policy question because he was the guy who negotiated the now very controversial Chagos deal yeah um and he's also been very very involved in the middle east and he comes from that sort of blair part of the world and they've got a view about the middle east which is not necessarily the same view as ed milliband's i just wonder if there's some tensions there potentially i haven't i honestly i mean i i talk to to people around the system i've not picked up anything like that uh doesn't mean there isn't anything um but jonathan was so in with people like Steve Witkoff uh trump's main negotiator the influence he had there was kind of invaluable to us so that's why i think he will be a huge loss and that's why you know i rather hope that it's not because of internal tensions but just because frankly, the guy's exhausted and you can't do these jobs forever. He'd be very hard to replace, that's for sure. Now, as for our man in Washington back in the day, you've seen Trump up close and it seems that in this final spurt before the mid-term elections he is particularly difficult and particularly worried about his position. How do you think Britain should play this next phase? Because it's going to be pretty turbulent. Yeah, it is going to be turbulent. in one sense Donald Trump is running a kind of imperial presidency he almost ignores Congress and if it goes badly for him as the pundits are saying it's more than 70 percent likely that he will now lose the Senate as well as the House he will kind of say well you know that's not my problem I'm still going to do what I do and do as much my second two years of this term the first two years but underneath it all it will be a big psychological blow and a big blow to his ego and i fear that you will find a trump who is furious and blaming others not just the republican party for losing this election not just his staff for failing him but also potentially the europeans for not supporting him on places like iran so it could be an even more turbulent period in the aftermath well i have to say the thought of trump lashing out more than he does at the moment is a pretty scary one. Lord Dara, Kim Dara, thank you very much indeed for coming in.