In response to a story by the Financial Times which claimed that outages in the Starlink satellites on the frontline were affecting Ukraine’s counter-offensive efforts, Elon Musk said in a tweet on Friday that he is in regular touch with Mykhailo Fedorov, the Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine, regarding the issue.
The Starlinks satellites were donated to Ukraine by the Musk-owned company SpaceX after Mykhailo Fedorov explicitly requested the billionaire in a February 2022 tweet. The Russian forces were deliberately destroying communication towers in Ukraine as part of its annexation efforts and the 18,000-odd Starlink dishes that SpaceX provided helped to restore Ukraine’s communication internally and with the rest of the world.
Also read: Elon Musk calls Ukraine Starlink outage claims affecting Russia pushback ‘bad reporting’
Who is Mykhailo Fedorov?
Mykhailo Fedorov was born on January 21, 1991, in Ukraine’s Vasylivka. He is a businessman and politician currently serving as the vice-Prime Minister in the Volodymyr Zelensky government. Since 2019, he is also serving as Ukraine’s Minister of Digital Transformation, spearheading multiple digital governance efforts. He is the youngest member of the Zelensky cabinet.
Fedorov served as an advisor to Zelensky in the 2019 presidential elections and was instrumental to his subsequent victory. As a minister, he has implemented multiple projects, the most notable being the ‘state in a smartphone’ initiative.
Fedorov claimed that by 2024, 100% of all government services will be provided to people online “in any life situation” without the interference of officials. Accordingly, he launched Diia – an app via which citizens can access government services and businesses can receive consultations. Several digital literacy courses were also made available through the app.
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He also launched a special E-Residency program that allows businessmen to trade in Ukraine without being physically present. He implemented the eMalyatko program which provides services to newborns, and the Internet-Subvention project providing basic internet facilities to villages. Under him, a laptop was provided to every teacher to aid literacy efforts.
