Quartz decided to check whether Elon Musk really spent $80 million on help for Ukraine. During another quarrel on the Internet, Musk wrote that his company provided Ukraine with Starlink terminals, which caused it to lose $80 million and put SpaceX and the billionaire himself at risk of cyberattacks. The named amount does not correspond to public information about the terminals: this means that either we donʼt know about all the contributions of SpaceX, or Musk is greatly exaggerating, the article says. In April, the American state agency USAID announced the delivery of 5,000 Starlink terminals to Ukraine. At first, the agency wrote that it had purchased them, but then removed it from the press release, so it is not known who covered the costs. Other messages also contained information about Starlink shipments from Europe. Even if there are 20,000 terminals in Ukraine, their cost, together with the cost of service, would not exceed $32 million. So, either SpaceX invested additional funds in infrastructure for terminals in Ukraine and neighboring countries, or Ukraine received significantly more antennas, or Musk simply decided to "round" the number, the publication writes.
The Washington Post writes that someone in Putinʼs inner circle has begun to criticize the war in Ukraine. This information, received by American intelligence, is the biggest manifestation of concern of the Kremlinʼs leadership that has been recorded so far, the publication writes. Anonymous sources in the White House told the media that this find is so important that it made it into Joe Bidenʼs daily intelligence briefing. According to one of the sources, the criticism concerned the mismanagement of the military effort in Ukraine. WP has not been able to confirm the identity of the critic, although the name is known to have been included in the report to the President. One of the representatives of Western intelligence also told the newspaper that discontent among Putinʼs inner circle is growing, in particular due to numerous recent personnel losses. In addition, the amount of public criticism of the top leadership of the Russian Armed Forces, in particular from Ramzan Kadyrov and Yevgeniy Prigozhyn, is increasing. An anonymous Russian official also told the newspaper that among the heads of parliamentary committees there are "protests" about the methods of conducting war and providing for the army. A representative of the Russian business elite believes that if the losses of the Russian military do not decrease, an internal struggle will begin in Russia, and the coming weeks will be decisive for Putinʼs future.
Pulitzer Prize winner Thomas Friedman writes about the unusual alliance between Putin and Saudi Arabiaʼs Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and the related problem of "green progressives" in a column for The New York Times. Both are hoping for a return to the influence of Donald Trump, who they say favors black oil far more than green energy. This Wednesday, the OPEC+ cartel, which includes the Russian Federation and Saudi Arabia, decided to cut oil production to prevent oil prices from falling. With this, Putin is trying to continue the pressure on the EU and Washington to stop supporting Ukraine. Since the world has had no energy strategy for a long time, writes Friedman, and Europe has pretended that it can abandon nuclear energy in favor of wind and solar energy (provided, of course, that cheap gas comes from Russia), Putinʼs plan is not so hopeless. As a result, Germany is resuming the production of completely non-ecological coal and extending the life of coal-fired power plants. Under pressure from the Greens, the U.S. has for a long time not developed oil production in new wells, resulting in the loss of 10 million barrels of oil per day, according to an April report by Goldman Sachs. As a result, it turns out that the actions of the "green progressives" are in favor of Putin. Blocking investment in new oil and gas fields in the US continues, but Friedman writes that he does not know who is worse ― the "greens" or pro-Trump Republicans who donʼt believe in climate change.