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| Photo Credit: AP. |
(AP) - Elon Musk has gotten into a Twitter tussle with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy after the tech billionaire floated a divisive proposal to end Russia’s invasion.
The Tesla
CEO, soon facing a court fight over his attempt to abandon a $44 billion offer
to buy Twitter, argued in a tweet Monday that to reach peace Russia should be
allowed to keep the Crimea Peninsula that it seized in 2014. He also said
Ukraine should adopt a neutral status, dropping a bid to join NATO following
Russia’s partial mobilization of reservists.
Musk also
crossed red lines for Ukraine and its supporters by suggesting that four
regions Russia is moving to annex following Kremlin-orchestrated “referendums”
denounced by the West as a sham should hold repeat votes organized by the
United Nations.
Musk noted
Crimea was part of Russia until it was given to Ukraine under the Soviet Union
in 1950s and said that a drawn-out war will likely not end in a resounding
Ukrainian victory.
These
positions are anathema for Zelenskyy, who considers them pro-Kremlin. The
Ukrainian leader has pledged to recover all the terrain conquered in the war
and considers Crimea as Ukraine’s to reclaim as well.
Musk also
launched a Twitter poll asking whether “the will of the people” should decide
if seized regions remain part of Ukraine or become part of Russia.
In a
sarcastic response, Zelenskyy posted a Twitter poll of his own asking “which
Elon Musk do you like more?”: “One who supports Ukraine” or “One who supports
Russia.”
Musk replied
to Zelenskyy that “I still very much support Ukraine, but am convinced that
massive escalation of the war will cause great harm to Ukraine and possibly the
world.”
Andrij
Melnyk, the outgoing Ukrainian ambassador to Germany, responded to Musk’s original
tweet with an obscenity.
“Russia is
doing partial mobilization. They go to full war mobilization if Crimea is at
risk. Death on both sides will be devastating,” Musk wrote in another tweet.
“Russia has (over) 3 times population of Ukraine, so victory for Ukraine is
unlikely in total war. If you care about the people of Ukraine, seek peace.”
The Kremlin
itself chimed in, praising Musk for his proposal but warning that Russia will
not backtrack on its move to absorb the Ukrainian regions.
“It’s very
positive that such a person as Elon Musk is trying to look for a peaceful
settlement,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday. But, “as for the
referendums, people have voiced their opinion and there could be nothing else.”
Ukraine and
the West have said that the hastily organized votes in four occupied regions
were clearly rigged to serve Putin’s purpose to try to cement his loosening
grip on Ukrainian terrain.
Musk’s ideas
seemed to get little support on Twitter, including from Russian chess great and
anti-Putin political activist Garry Kasparov, who bashed the plan.
“This is
moral idiocy, repetition of Kremlin propaganda, a betrayal of Ukrainian courage
and sacrifice, and puts a few minutes browsing Crimea on Wikipedia over the
current horrific reality of Putin’s bloody war,” Kasparov tweeted.
In the first
weeks of the invasion in early March, Musk came to Ukraine’s aid when his
SpaceX company shared its Starlink satellite system that helps deliver internet
access to areas that lack coverage. At the time, Zelenskyy thanked Musk for the
equipment that he said would help maintain communications in cities under
attack.
However, in
April, Musk said that as a “free speech absolutist” Starlink would not block
Russian state media outlets that spread propaganda and misinformation on the
war in Ukraine.
Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine