Almost 600 Starlink stations provided by Elon Musk have been transferred to Ukrainian hospitals to keep them connected to the internet during heavy shelling.
Starlink, which operates via a satellite fleet in low orbit, is the only internet service still functioning in some parts of Ukraine.
It has helped the government to stay online after Musk’s SpaceX company sent user terminals at the request of a deputy prime minister in Kyiv earlier this month.
Viktor Liashko, Ukraine’s health minister, said that the 590 systems will be used by healthcare facilities during blackouts or problems with the core power network, enabling them to retain access to satellite internet while under attack. “Thanks to SpaceX’s broadband satellite, our hospitals will always be able to remain connected. This is extremely important in times of war,” he said.
On Saturday the World Health Organisation reported that there had been more than 70 separate attacks on hospitals, ambulances and doctors in Ukraine with the number increasing on a “daily basis”.
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To date, Musk, 50, a South African-born businessman, has sent more than a thousand Starlink terminals to Ukraine since the start of the war, free of charge.
As well as maintaining connectivity, the internet terminals have been used to co-ordinate drone reconnaissance, providing intelligence on the location of Russian units. They have been specially modified to make them more difficult to hack.
