Ukrainian ambassador to the U.S. Oksana Markarova appeared on television Sunday to ask to speed up U.S. air defense to Ukraine.
President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed in September that air defense was on its way from the U.S., but according to Markarova, the system “is not ready on the shelves waiting.”
“But we’re doing everything possible and asking our partners to do everything possible to speed up not only the delivery, but also the ordering of the system,” Markarova said on CBS News’ Face the Nation.
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Russian forces launched “hundreds” of missiles across Ukraine this week in a bombardment that has brought many cities that had largely been spared from the war back into the battleground, according to a senior U.S. military official.
“We should be prepared for everything, and it’s actually irrelevant at this point what [President Vladimir Putin] says, because this partial mobilization has been a big failure,” Markarova said. “People in Russia do not want to be mobilized. They’re not equipped. They’re not prepared. They’re not motivated. Yes, there are a lot of them. But it has been a failure in Russia.”
Markarova also commented on a tweet from billionaire Elon Musk Saturday, alluding that his rocket company SpaceX may continue to fund its satellite-based Starlink internet service in Ukraine. On Friday, senior U.S. officials confirmed that Musk had officially asked the Defense Department to take over funding for the service Starlink provides in Ukraine. This tweet seemed to show Musk’s change in tone.
“There is no payment dispute, per se,” Markarova clarified. “I mean, there are discussions on that we need more and where we need them and how we will need them.”
The Ukrainian ambassador also cleared the air on the Starlink outages across her country, which early reports blamed on the SpaceX CEO as a result of the payment dispuate.
“But the actual reason for the outages is Russian aggression, and the fact that they are booming our infrastructure and this- this- this disrupting the- the connectivity of all the cellular operators and trying to interfere also with with others,” Markarova said. “We’re trying to resolve it in many possible ways. And Starlink has been instrumental part of the solution.”
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Early Friday, Musk tweeted that it was costing SpaceX $20 million a month to support Ukraine’s communications needs. He came around over the weekend, however, and said he would continue to fund the effort.
