The starlink thing is a bit more complicated then that. https://apnews.com/article/spacex-ukraine-starlink-russia-air-force-fde93d9a69d7dbd1326022ecfdbc53c2

Tldr: Starlink had been providing Ukraine Starlink access for free and specifically didn’t allow them to use it in Crimea only. They weren’t under a military contract or anything that would have required them to do so and I can definitely see the perspective that it would be a bigger step as Crimea is contested land in a different way than Ukraine as a whole.

When Russia took over Crimea, they did it in such a way that it wasn’t a full invasion and was cloaked in “the people voted to be part of Russia” though we know there were many shenanigans afoot such as a “not Russian” military presence and it’s pretty obvious it was in response to the Revolution of Dignity within Ukraine.

Anyway, the US didn’t provide Ukraine with weapons or anything like that to defend themselves from Russia at that point (which, to be fair it wasn’t even close to the same situation as when Russia actually invaded Ukraine) though they did slap a bunch of sanctions on Russia and wagged their finger at them.

So Crimea is a bit of a different situation and the US govt had been pretty clear at that time that Ukraine should only be using the US provisions for defensive purposes, not for attacking Russia, which Crimea could be construed as being part of Russia. Not to mention at the time Russia was very much threatening nuclear war.

Ultimately, it’s a much more complicated situation then a lot of people prefer to actually discuss and instead will immediately label you an Elon lover or Russian apologist or Tankies or w/e if you don’t pretend it’s a black and white good/bad situation.

For example, Ukraine does literally have a Nazi batallion in their military, (Azov) and the US is indirectly funding and providing them with weapons with very little oversight. I think that’s wrong and should be called out, however pretty much any discussion of that in the MSM or by people of congress gets you labeled a Putin supporter or Russian propagandist.

For an even more recent example, look at what’s been going on in Israel/Palestine over the past several decades. Israel has systematically fucked over the Palestinian people, which has bred a far right terroristic group (Hamas) and lead to thousands upon thousands of deaths on both sides (but mostly Palestinians) and you have people on MSM calling for basically genocide of the Palestinians and Jewish celebrities claiming persecution if you don’t agree with every word of the Israel line, yet even the Israeli citizens don’t agree with what their government has been doing.

There’s so much gray and mess in these situations but instead of thoughtfully look at the underlying causes and potential real reasons these things are happening (it’s not just because Musk sucks, Putin sucks, and Hamas sucks, and the Israeli government sucks, though they do don’t get me wrong) everyone just picks a team and ignores any truthful pushback.

I ended up writing way more then I intended to, my b.