Polish President Karol Nawrocki’s veto of an amendment to the law on assistance to Ukrainian citizens will not lead to the shutdown of Starlink in Ukraine, the head of Nawrocki’s office, Zbigniew Bogutski, has said, contradicting the words of Digital Technology Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski and urging him not to create manipulations.
According to Bogutski, Navrocki’s veto does not switch off Starlink in Ukraine “because the costs of this are financed on the basis of the provisions of the current law, and the bill submitted to the Sejm by the Polish president preserves this status quo.”
“This is sufficient to effectively work through this presidential initiative in the Polish parliament in September. The same goes for supporting the storage of Ukrainian government data in a safe place,” Bogutsky wrote in social network X on the evening of 25 August.
On the same day, Poland’s Deputy Prime Minister for Digitalisation Krzysztof Gawkowski criticised President Karol Nowrocki for vetoing an amendment to the law on aid to Ukrainian citizens because it would, according to him, lead to the disconnection of Starlink provided by Poland to Ukraine.
“Karol Nawrocki’s decision effectively disconnects the internet (Starlink) in Ukraine because it effectively means his decision on the law on aid to citizens of Ukraine. It is the end of the Starlink internet that Poland provides to war-torn Ukraine. It also means the end of supporting the Ukrainian government’s data storage in a safe place,” he wrote on social network X.
Gawkowski called on Poland’s president to “stop blindly attacking the government in the name of political struggle.”
“I can’t imagine a better gift for Putin’s forces than switching off the internet in Ukraine, which the president has just decided to do. Mr President, you must stop blindly attacking the government in the name of political struggle. You are harming people who are fighting for their independence while helping Russia,” he added.
Polish President Karol Nawrocki on 25 September vetoed an amendment to the law on aid to Ukrainian citizens. The bill, which was approved by the votes of Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s centre-left coalition, provided for the extension of refugees’ receipt of these social benefits until March 2026. Prime Minister Donald Tusk criticised the veto, but his government does not have the two-thirds majority in parliament needed to override the move.
The opportunity to use Starlink terminals in Ukraine came at the end of February 2022. Since then, Ukraine has received more than 50 thousand terminals from international partners and donors alone. Almost 30 thousand of them were paid for by Poland, the Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine Mikhail Fedorov said in April this year.
According to Krzysztof Gawkowski, Poland bought Starlink terminals for Ukraine and paid for their operation.