This story is getting a lot of play, seems like someone in the defense industry is pushing it hard.

Giving Starlink away for free as a humanitarian effort for the people of Ukraine makes a lot of sense, it’s the right thing to do and good PR for Space X.

Using Starlink for military operations also makes a lot of sense, if you need it, they are building out “Starshield” services for just that purpose but it’s not what the current network was designed for and it’s hard to get the appropriate licenses in a war zone.

As for asking for someone to pay for the service: nobody is giving away military hardware for free, it’s all on lend-lease agreements that Ukraine will eventually have to repay over time (the UK only recently finished paying their WWII bills to the US on similar agreements).