South African billionaire Elon Musk suggested that Ukraine risks losing even more territory if its summer offensive against Russian forces fails.

“The flower of Ukrainian and Russian youth has been dying in the trenches for a long time with almost no territorial gains. The side that goes on the offensive against heavily fortified positions will lose many more soldiers,” Musk wrote on Twitter, responding to a series of user posts about the US decision to send cluster munitions to Ukraine.

“Furthermore, Russia has a 4:1 advantage over Ukraine, so it will win a war of attrition even if it loses [suferite de ambele părți] would be equal. If the Ukrainian offensive fails with heavy losses, the Russian counterattack will capture much more territory,” Musk said.

“This is the reason why there was no major offensive,” he concluded, referring to the fact that the Ukrainian military has not yet committed most of its forces to the offensive launched in June after months of preparation against the Russian invasion.

Elon Musk became the object of criticism due to his comments about the war in Ukraine

The South African billionaire was sharply criticized in social networks and the press for the comments he made in the second half of last year regarding the war in Ukraine.

Perhaps the most controversial of them happened in early October, when he presented on his Twitter page a “recipe” for ending the war started by Vladimir Putin, offering Ukraine to officially recognize the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014.

This plan was also criticized by the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyi, and other high-ranking officials in Kyiv. “If you want to understand what Russia has done here, come to Ukraine and you will see everything for yourself. And then you will tell me how to end this war, who started it and when it can end,” the Ukrainian leader told the billionaire.

Two weeks later, Musk said SpaceX could not “indefinitely” fund Ukraine’s Starlink satellite internet system, which it had made available to Ukrainians since the start of the Russian invasion, and asked the Pentagon to pay for its use instead of Kyiv.

Although Musk eventually backtracked on threats that Starlink would be disabled for Ukrainian forces, in February of this year SpaceX banned its use by Ukrainian drone operators, saying the system was not intended for military applications.

Gwynn Shotwell, SpaceX’s president and chief operating officer, said at the time that Starlink was “never intended to be used as a weapon.” “However, the Ukrainians used it for the wrong purpose and were not part of any agreement,” she accused.

At the beginning of last month, the Pentagon announced that it had signed a contract with SpaceX to finance the provision of the Starlink service to Ukraine.

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