Ukraine’s parliament and its speaker engaged in a light-hearted exchange with billionaire Elon Musk after he shared a meme on his social media platform, poking fun at President Volodymyr Zelensky’s appeals for Western assistance against Vladimir Putin’s forces.
Musk, the owner of SpaceX, a company crucial for Ukraine’s defense through its Starlink satellite communication services, has at times sparked controversy in Kyiv since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February of the previous year.
Early Monday, Musk posted a meme on his platform X (formerly Twitter), featuring Zelensky with the caption: “When it’s been 5 minutes and you haven’t asked for a billion dollars in aid.”
Throughout the war, Ukraine’s leaders, including Zelensky, have consistently called on their allies to secure significant amounts of military aid to withstand and repel Russia’s invasion.
Ruslan Stefanchuk, the speaker of Ukraine’s parliament, responded to Musk’s jest with his own post on X, quipping, “The case when [Elon Musk] tried to conquer space, but something went wrong and in 5 minutes he was up to his eyeballs in s***,” evidently referring to SpaceX’s unsuccessful rocket launch in April.
Ukraine’s parliament, on its official page on X, accused Musk of disseminating Russian propaganda and shared its own version of the meme featuring Musk with the caption: “When it’s been 5 minutes and you haven’t spread Russian propaganda.”
Mykhailo Podolyak, a Ukrainian presidential adviser who has previously critiqued Musk’s statements, expressed on X that remaining silent or making light of Ukraine’s situation inadvertently aids Russian propaganda.
“Unfortunately, not everyone, even those with significant media influence, but who are thousands of kilometers away from the war zone, can fully grasp the daily bombings and the cries of children losing their parents.”
Earlier in the conflict, Ukrainian officials had rebuked Musk for suggesting that they should consider ceding land for peace, a stance firmly rejected by Kyiv.
Zelensky’s visit to the United States in September involved meetings with top officials in an effort to secure further aid. However, over the weekend, aid for Ukraine was left out of a temporary funding measure passed by Congress in Washington to avert a US government shutdown.
Despite calls from some right-wing Republicans, supporters of former President Donald Trump, to halt funding for Ukraine, President Joe Biden’s administration anticipates that the Republican-controlled House of Representatives will pass a measure to maintain aid flow.
On Sunday, Biden urged congressional Republicans to support the aid, expressing frustration with the political brinkmanship that nearly led to a government shutdown.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister, Dmytro Kuleba, stated on Monday that Kyiv remains confident in US support, emphasizing that the United States recognizes that the stakes in Ukraine go far beyond the country itself. He described the recent events in the US Congress as an “incident.”
