{"id":27415,"date":"2026-10-31T03:46:07","date_gmt":"2026-10-31T03:46:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/?p=27415"},"modified":"2026-10-31T03:46:07","modified_gmt":"2026-10-31T03:46:07","slug":"putin-calls-musk-real-genius-close-contact-satellites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/2026\/10\/31\/putin-calls-musk-real-genius-close-contact-satellites\/","title":{"rendered":"Des probl\u00e8mes de connexion Starlink en Ukraine, au moment des propos de Putin sur Musk"},"content":{"rendered":"<section aria-labelledby=\"hpd-nfnmyipv-inrtzyj-hlesdml-zofjqh\" class=\"auk-zvimcvi-inrtzyj\" lang=\"en\">\n<h2 id=\"hpd-nfnmyipv-inrtzyj-hlesdml-zofjqh\">In brief<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Putin praised Musk as a \u201creal genius\u201d and said Russia is in \u201cclose\u201d contact with him about satellite technology.<\/li>\n<li>Starlink has launched roughly 13,000 satellites, according to the company, while trackers show only a couple of dozen Rassvet satellites.<\/li>\n<li>SpaceX did not respond to the BBC and has not confirmed the contacts Putin described.<\/li>\n<li>Ukraine\u2019s military suffered sudden Starlink connectivity problems last week, which Musk has admitted SpaceX did intentionally.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/section>\n<p>Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, called Elon Musk a \u201creal genius\u201d on Wednesday and said Moscow is in \u201cclose\u201d contact with the SpaceX owner about satellite technology, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c63djl148n3eo?at_medium=RSS&amp;at_campaign=rss\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">the BBC<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n<h2>What Putin said in Moscow<\/h2>\n<p>Putin spoke at the Russia-Africa Summit in Moscow, where he discussed Rassvet, Russia\u2019s own satellite internet project, which delivers internet connections to users from satellites. The quotes here follow a BBC translation of his words.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"auk-pocmgnt\">\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s a genius, a real genius,\u201d<\/p>\n<p><cite>Vladimir Putin, Russian President<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>He described the relationship in terms of partnership: \u201cWe are in close contact with our American partners, including Mr. Musk.\u201d In his account, the contact matters because Russian and American satellites, Rassvet and Starlink, must avoid interfering with one another while in orbit. He also said: \u201cWe and our American partners value this mutually, and despite all the political questions, we are working hard.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Starlink belongs to Musk\u2019s company SpaceX, which did not respond to a BBC request for comment. Nothing is described about what Putin and Musk actually discuss beyond Putin\u2019s own words, and SpaceX has not confirmed the contacts.<\/p>\n<h2>A giant and a newcomer<\/h2>\n<p>The Russian Embassy in South Africa, on the same day, called Rassvet \u201cRussia\u2019s Starlink alternative\u201d and said it \u201cmarks only the country\u2019s first steps in this field\u201d. The embassy also wrote that Russia keeps close contacts with the United States on space, Musk included. The gap in scale is wide.<\/p>\n<div class=\"auk-kmrcibp\">\n<div class=\"auk-fsnsbv\"><strong class=\"auk-fsnsbv__fvtkh\">~13,000<\/strong><span class=\"auk-fsnsbv__ppkniutc\">Starlink satellites launched, according to the company<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"auk-fsnsbv\"><strong class=\"auk-fsnsbv__fvtkh auk-fsnsbv__fvtkh--umvxk-gkfeiy\">A couple of dozen<\/strong><span class=\"auk-fsnsbv__ppkniutc\">Rassvet satellites in orbit, according to online satellite trackers<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h2>Starlink outages and a warming US-Russia mood<\/h2>\n<p>Putin\u2019s remarks came as Ukraine faced difficulties with the very service he was discussing. Ukraine had relied on Starlink internet to keep Russian forces at bay, yet its military suddenly suffered connectivity problems last week. Musk has admitted that SpaceX caused this on purpose. The BBC report does not connect those outages to the contacts Putin described.<\/p>\n<p>The BBC places the comments against a background in which Washington and Moscow appear to be growing closer, with the fifth anniversary of Putin\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine approaching. That reading is the BBC\u2019s own, expressed with the words \u201cappear to be\u201d. Earlier this month, US President Donald Trump said he had agreed a deal with Russia on importing diesel, intended to ease fuel prices that have shot up because of the US war with Iran. Trump then waived certain sanctions against Russia that were due to take effect.<\/p>\n<p>Shortly afterwards, Russia freed a US citizen from custody, and the US envoy Steve Witkoff described Putin as a \u201chumanitarian\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Musk\u2019s companies, among them Tesla, SpaceX and Starlink, are all headquartered in the United States, with most operations in California and Texas. The BBC calls him one of the largest political allies and financial backers of Trump and other Republican politicians.<\/p>\n<p class=\"media-credit auk-gogcn-ertkm\" data-provider=\"pexels\"><small>Photo: Pixabay \/ <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pexels.com\/photo\/white-satellite-dish-33153\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Pexels<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Putin\u2019s remarks came as Ukraine reported Starlink service problems, a reminder of how much the satellite network matters to both sides of the conflict.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":27417,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[1281,1268,1283,1285,1284,1282,1202],"class_list":["post-27415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-elon-musk","tag-putin","tag-rassvet","tag-russia-africa-summit","tag-spacex","tag-starlink","tag-ukraine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27415"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27415\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27416,"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27415\/revisions\/27416"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}