Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
Russia’s president chose a Moscow stage this week to pour public praise on an American most of Washington is still arguing about.
Vladimir Putin spent much of Wednesday hosting African leaders at a flagship Kremlin summit, but it was a detour to an exhibition of Russian space hardware that produced the most striking line of the day.
A Russian minister was presenting a satellite constellation meant to challenge SpaceX, and the conversation turned to the man building the global benchmark.
“Elon Musk is a real genius,” Putin said at the Russia-Africa summit on October 28, calling Musk’s work on Starlink an achievement Russia is still far from matching. He added that Moscow stays in regular touch with American partners on orbital safety, saying “despite all the political issues, we are working closely,” as The Moscow Times reported.
Russia’s digital development minister, Maksut Shadayev, was using the exhibition to show off Rassvet, Russia’s planned answer to Starlink, a nascent program measured in a handful of satellites against the more than 5,000 Putin cited for Musk’s company. “We are only taking our first steps,” the Russian president said.
A warm word days after a bitter dispute
The praise lands only days after Musk himself used the threat from Russia as his argument for restricting Ukraine’s wartime use of Starlink. In an October 27 post on X, Musk wrote that “an adversary blowing up Starlink satellites would create a domino effect of destruction that would generate a vast field of debris making space unusable,” according to Meduza.
That post came in the aftermath of a 10-day throttle on Starshield, SpaceX’s military version of Starlink used by Ukrainian forces. Ukrainian military data cited by UNITED24 Media showed terminals dropping from operational speeds of up to 470 km/h to an enforced cap of around 160 km/h between October 14 and October 24, crippling fast drones and other mobile units. Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian military vehicles fell by about 37 percent during that window.
Who ordered the slowdown is still contested
Who actually imposed the limit is still unresolved. Reuters, citing US and Western officials, pointed to a White House order; The Wall Street Journal attributed the decision to Musk himself, according to a review by Snopes, which concluded that the circumstances remain unproven. Ukrainian officials said at the time they had received no clear explanation from either SpaceX or the Pentagon.
Full speeds were restored on October 24. In announcing the restoration, Musk accused Kyiv of having breached the terms of its Starlink agreement, a claim Ukrainian officials have rejected.
As of Thursday, Musk had not publicly responded to Putin’s praise. The Russia-Africa summit continues in Moscow on October 29, with space cooperation on the agenda, Russian officials have said.
