Putin praises Elon Musk, compares him to father of Soviet space program

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday praised Elon Musk, comparing him to Sergei Korolev, the chief engineer behind the Soviet Union's space success in the 1950s and 1960s, state news agency TASS reported.

TASS cited Putin, who was speaking on Russia's space policy at a meeting with students, as saying: "You know, there's a person who lives in the States, you could say that he's absolutely crazy about Mars."

It quoted him as drawing a comparison between Musk and Sergei Korolev, a Soviet engineer who was instrumental in the Soviet Union's success in sending Yuri Gagarin on the world's first crewed spaceflight in 1961.

According to TASS, Putin said: "Such people rarely appear in the human population, charged with a certain idea. Even though it may seem incredible to me today, after a time such ideas are often realised."

Putin has previously praised Musk, whose business interests include the SpaceX space technology company, as "an outstanding person".

Musk, a top advisor to U.S. President Donald Trump, has become increasingly vocal in his criticism of Ukraine, which has been fighting against Russia since 2022, when the Kremlin ordered tens of thousands of troops into its neighbour's territory.