Ukraine’s parliament and its speaker mocked billionaire Elon Musk on Monday after he posted a meme on his social media mocking President Volodymyr Zelensky’s pleas for Western war aid.
Musk owns SpaceX, which provides Starlink satellite communications services vital to Ukraine’s defense efforts, but his statements have at times angered Kyiv since the full-scale invasion launched by Russia in February last year.
Early on Monday, Musk posted a meme on his X platform, formerly known as Twitter, featuring Zelenskyy and the caption: “When 5 minutes have passed and you haven’t asked for a billion dollars in aid.”
During the war, the Ukrainian leader and his top lieutenants appealed to their allies to provide billions of dollars in military aid to stave off a Russian invasion.
Ukrainian Parliament Speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk hit back at Moscow’s taunts with his post on X.
“The case when…(Elon Musk) tried to conquer space but something went wrong and in 5 minutes he was up to his eyes in shit,” an apparent reference to SpaceX’s failed rocket launch in April.
Ukraine’s parliament accused Musk of spreading Russian propaganda on its official X page and posted its version of a meme with a picture of Musk and the caption: “When 5 minutes have passed and you haven’t spread Russian propaganda”.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podoljak, who has criticized some of Musk’s statements in the past, said in a post on X that silence or irony about Ukraine plays into the hands of Russian propaganda.
“Unfortunately, not everyone and not always, although he is a prominent media representative, he is thousands of kilometers away from the epicenter of the war, and he can realize what the daily bombing and the cry of children who lose their parents.”
Ukrainian officials had criticized Musk earlier in the war for suggesting they should consider giving up the country for peace, a position Kyiv firmly rejected.
Zelensky visited the United States in September and met with top officials to secure more aid. Over the weekend, aid to Ukraine was left out of a temporary funding measure passed by the US Congress to avert a US government shutdown.
The United States has been the largest single donor to Ukraine since last year’s full-scale Russian invasion, providing tens of billions of dollars in military and financial aid.
Image Source: English Jagran
