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Starlink won’t remove Poland from Europe after all, days after Warsaw threatened to drop Ukraine’s funding

Source: Radosław Sikorski

Starlink will not remove Poland from the European region of its satellite communications network. Janusz Cieszyński, a former Polish digital affairs minister, was the first to report the reversal.

Poland’s current digital affairs minister, Krzysztof Gawkowski, and Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski later confirmed the report. In a post on X, Sikorski thanked Elon Musk, who owns Starlink, for acknowledging that Poland is part of the European Union.

Thank you, Elon Musk, for acknowledging that Poland is part of the European Union and that its citizens cannot be discriminated against

Meduza reported earlier this week that Starlink planned to drop Poland from its European region on August 17. The reasons for the change were not made public. The change would have driven up service costs for Polish customers. In response, Sikorski threatened to stop Poland’s payments for Starlink’s services in Ukraine.

Ukraine uses Starlink’s network in its war with Russia. Poland’s Ministry of Digital Affairs finances satellite communications for Ukraine’s armed forces at a cost of about $50 million a year.

Russian troops also used Starlink terminals, but large numbers of the devices went offline along the front line early this year.

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