A poll by the outspoken billionaire Elon Musk asking Twitter users to weigh in on a plan to end the Ukraine war has sparked a flurry of criticism, including from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The controversial “peace” proposal put forward by the entrepreneur behind Tesla Inc and SpaceX included United Nations-supervised elections in the four Ukrainian regions recently annexed by Russia, and recognising Crimea as Russian territory.
Crimea, which was occupied by Russia in 2014, is strategically important for its access to the Black Sea.
Most nations recognise Crimea as an autonomous region within Ukraine and reject Russia’s annexation of the territory as illegal.
The initial four-point proposal was amended later on Monday in a subsequent tweet asking users if they would support another referendum in Crimea – the last one, which was widely condemned as illegitimate, was held in 2014.
Musk has previously shown solidarity with Ukraine and provided through his company SpaceX equipment for its Starlink internet service, so that the war-torn country could maintain online access to the rest of the world.
But Ukrainians viewed his proposals as a betrayal of his earlier support.
Zelenskyy replied by launching a Twitter poll accusing Musk of contradicting himself.
Andrij Melnyk, Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany, had a blunt response to Musk’s initial poll.
“F— off is my very diplomatic reply to you @elonmusk,” he wrote on Twitter.
Musk responded to Zelenskyy in a public tweet late on Monday, saying he still supported Ukraine but feared the consequences of escalating the war.
“This is highly likely to be the outcome in the end – just a question of how many die before then,” Musk said.
“Also worth noting that a possible, albeit unlikely, outcome from this conflict is nuclear war,” he added. (Aljazeera)