Ukraine’s fears that its troops  may lose access to Elon Musk’s crucial Starlink internet service deepened in the past week after 1300 of the military’s satellite units went offline, according to two sources familiar with the outage, CNN reports.

The small, easy-to-use satellite dishes made by Musk’s private rocket company SpaceX have been universally hailed as a game-changing source of communication for Ukraine’s military, allowing it to fight and stay online even as cellular phone and internet networks have been destroyed in its war with Russia. 

But concerns have risen recently over the dependability of SpaceX after discussions about funding were revealed and outages were reported near the frontlines. 

CNN first reported that SpaceX sent a letter in September to the Pentagon claiming it had spent almost $100 million funding Starlink in Ukraine and that it could no longer continue to do so. The letter requested that the Defense Department  take over more of the funding  for Ukraine’s military, which it calculated would run tens of millions of dollars a month. 

Days after the CNN report, Musk appeared to reverse course, claiming that SpaceX had withdrawn the request. 

“The hell with it,” Musk tweeted, “we’ll just keep funding Ukraine govt for free.”

Negotiations between SpaceX and the Defense Department continue despite Musk’s claim that SpaceX withdrepw its request, according to a senior defense official.

“Negotiations are very much underway. Everyone in our building knows we’re going to pay them,” the senior Pentagon official told CNN, adding that the department is eager to have commitments in writing “because we worry he’ll change his mind.”