(The article was originally published in Indian Express as a part of Dr Ram Madhav’s column titled Ram Rajya on October 17, 2026. Views expressed are personal.)
Before venturing into Ukraine in February 2022, the Russian Army knocked out Viasat satellite communications link to that country, a crucial lifeline for all communications – both military and civil. The Russians did this not by using any anti-satellite missiles but by deploying wiper malware in the ground control systems to erase the satellite’s ability to connect with the ground. The Ukrainian Army was crippled. Without the Viasat link, its commanders couldn’t contact field units, share information and coordinate the counterattack. When the Russians landed in dozens of helicopters in Kyiv in the very first week of the war, they anticipated a simple surrender by the Ukrainians.
But what the Ukrainian leadership did at that critical juncture eloquently showcased the changed reality of the new world. The Ukrainian leadership didn’t rush to the Americans or Europeans for help. Instead, the deputy prime minister of Ukraine, Mykhailo Fedorov, turned to his X account to send an SOS to one person he was confident of saving Ukraine – Elon Musk. Musk’s company SpaceX owns a constellation of over 11,000 satellites called Starlink in low earth orbit (LEO) that provide communication links to countries and companies. Starlink has the ability to instantly get anybody anywhere in the world online through that network. “@elonmusk”, tweeted Fedorov from his X account, “while you try to colonize Mars – Russians try to occupy Ukraine! While your rockets successfully land from space – Russian rockets attack Ukrainian civil people! We ask you to provide Ukraine with Starlink stations and to address sane Russians to stand”. Musk didn’t take much time to reply. “Starlink service is now active in Ukraine. More terminals en route”, he tweeted by the same evening. In the next couple of days, Starlink provided five hundred terminals, and the Ukrainian Army was back in full action to throw the Russians out of Kyiv.
“Starlink is indeed the blood of our entire communication infrastructure now”, boasted Fedorov. But the story doesn’t end there. Soon Musk demonstrated to Fedorov that it was his whims that carry the day for Ukraine, not Zelenskyy’s or Fedorov’s commands. When Fedorov placed an emergency request for Starlink systems over Crimea for Ukrainian Army to conduct a strike on the Russian naval fleet using submarine drones, Musk sternly reprimanded him saying that “if the Ukrainian attacks had succeeded in sinking the Russian fleet, it would have been like a mini Pearl Harbor. We did not want to be a part of that”. “When Musk decided to step in to halt a Ukrainian attack around Crimea based on his own calculation of what might happen next, he was, in effect, appointing himself national security advisor”, quipped NYT columnist Sanger. Last year, when the Ukrainian Army launched a pivotal push to retake territory occupied by the Russians, Musk suddenly ordered his company to cut coverage of its services in those regions severely disrupting and denting the Ukrainian Army’s ability to move ahead. This sudden communications blackout by Starlink resulted in their failure to recapture Russian positions. Currently, Ukrainian forces are reporting sudden blackouts and severe speed restrictions at their communication terminals that are causing panic to the soldiers on the field operating drones and other advanced systems. Musk shrugged off saying it was a political decision taken by the US Administration and his company is simply implementing it.
The Ukrainian experience is illustrative of not one, but two important lessons – one, that a tech-giant like Elon Musk had more power to support the Ukrainians in war than probably the Western governments; and two, he not only helps but ultimately controls the war and its outcome. That is the heteropolar order in action.
On a visit to Budapest in the end of 2023, I heard from many analysts of the ruling dispensation that Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban faced major threat not from the Liberal European leadership or the Democrat dispensation in Washington DC, but from a fellow Hungarian, George Soros. Soros is not the head of any country nor does he have any army. He is a 95-year-old Hungarian American businessman and a hedge fund manager with a net worth of over $7 billion. How then is he a threat to the government of a sovereign nation? Soros founded and funded Open Society Foundation, a philanthropic arm with a stated aim of working for justice, democratic governance and human rights. He is an open supporter of liberal parties and left-liberal NGOs and often grants huge donations to all and sundry causes from campaigns on the campuses to clashes on the streets. He is seen as an open enemy of right-wing leaders from Donald Trump in America to Viktor Orban in his country of birth. In fact, Orban’s government spent millions of dollars on a poster campaign against Soros accusing him of leading an international cabal to destabilize Right-wing governments in Europe and elsewhere. Soros and his Foundation acquired notoriety as dubious conspirators of “regime changes” and agents of chaos. Finally, Soros succeeded in ousting Orban from power after 15 years last year. Interestingly, Musk himself compared Soros to X-Men villain Magneto in a controversial tweet in May 2023. When an X user defended Soros as having good intentions, Musk responded by saying “you assume they are good intentions. They are not. He wants to erode the very fabric of civilization. Soros hates humanity”.
Welcome to the heteropolar world, where big-tech dadas and big-money daddies can try to outmanoeuvre sovereign nations. That world is active in India too. The Narendra Modi government is standing up to this heteropolar challenge.
