The key facts

  • At the Russia–Africa summit, Putin called Musk 'a true genius' and said he is in 'close contact' on the 'Rassvet' project
  • Earlier, Starlink in Ukraine experienced outages for about 10 days; WSJ reports Musk ordered the restriction, while Reuters says the order came from the White House
  • Musk claimed that Ukraine violated Starlink's terms by using the service for 'offensive drone strikes'

Putin's statement at the Russia–Africa summit

Russian President Vladimir Putin said he is in 'close contact' with SpaceX head Elon Musk regarding 'Rassvet' — Russia's counterpart to the Starlink satellite internet service. 'Elon Musk is a genius, a true genius,' Putin said on Wednesday at the Russia–Africa summit. 'He already has more than 5,000 such satellites in orbit, while we are only taking our first steps.' This was reported by TechCrunch.

Starlink outages in Ukraine and the dispute over who gave the order

The statement came amid heightened questions about Ukraine's access to Starlink. After the United States eased sanctions against Russia earlier this month, Ukrainian officials feared that Kyiv could lose access to Starshield — the military version of the Starlink network on which Ukrainian forces rely. The fears had grounds: for about 10 days at the start of the month, Ukrainian drones regularly lost connectivity. According to The Wall Street Journal, Musk ordered SpaceX to restrict Ukraine's access to Starlink; however, according to Reuters, the order came from the White House — sources differ on who made the decision. Musk himself claimed on Xthat Ukraine had violated Starlink's terms of use by employing the technology for 'offensive drone strikes with the aim of killing people.'

Service restoration and Musk's words about the front line

By October 24, Starlink's operation in Ukraine had, according to reports, returned to normal. Earlier, Musk wrote on X: 'If Starlink were turned off, Ukraine's entire front line would collapse immediately. That is not a threat, it is simply a statement of fact.' Thus, the public rapprochement between Putin and Musk around 'Rassvet' is taking place against the backdrop of confirmed communication outages on which Ukraine's front-line infrastructure depends — although the cause of these outages remains a matter of conflicting reports.