Musk retweeted a post, quoting Austen's account that at the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, after Russian forces disrupted all communications in Ukraine, the Ukrainian side requested Starlink support from Musk. Musk and the Starlink team immediately paused all work, transported terminals via private jet, and wrote code while the plane flew eastward to enable the terminals to operate over Ukraine. According to Austen's friend, there was no contract or promise of payment for this operation at the time.