Russian President Vladimir Putin is using billionaire Elon Musk to broadcast terms for ending his war in Ukraine, former top National Security Council analyst Fiona Hill said.
Hill told Politico in an interview published Monday that Putin has chosen Musk in a well-worn playbook of using prominent businesspeople to communicate his demands to a wider audience.
“Putin plays the egos of big men, gives them a sense that they can play a role. But in reality, they’re just direct transmitters of messages from Vladimir Putin,” Hill told Politico.
Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, earlier this month shared suggestions for ending the war with his followers on Twitter, earning the condemnation of Ukrainian officials. His proposal included redoing “elections” in the four Ukraine regions Putin annexed “under U.N. supervision,” referring to the sham referendums the Kremlin organized in these regions. Musk also suggested formally declaring Crimea, which Putin illegally annexed in 2014, part of Russia.
Hill, currently a senior foreign policy fellow on the United States and Europe at the Washington-based Brookings think tank, said Musk made similar suggestions during “The Weekend” festival in Aspen, Colorado, last month.
Hill also pointed to Musk’s proposal to guarantee the water supply of Crimea, which Ukrainian officials curtailed after the annexation by blocking water from Ukraine’s Dnipro River to the peninsula, as a sign of his communications with the Russian leader.
“It’s unlikely Elon Musk knows about this himself,” Hill said. “The reference to water is so specific that this clearly is a message from Putin.”
Ian Bremmer, founder of the prominent political risk consultancy firm Eurasia Group, reported Musk told him Putin was “prepared to negotiate” with Ukraine if some of his terms were met.
Musk has denied he spoke to Putin. Bremmer is sticking with his account.
Hill said by using Musk as a messenger, Putin “is basically short-circuiting the diplomatic process” to advance his goals.
“He wants to lay out his terms and see how many people are going to pick them up,” Hill said. “All of this is an effort to get Americans to take themselves out of the war and hand over Ukraine and Ukrainian territory to Russia.”
Hill said Putin’s selection of Musk as a messenger is “fascinating” in part because the world’s richest person has been supporting Ukraine through SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service, which has been used by the Ukrainian military.
Musk had threatened to pull the plug on Starlink unless the Pentagon helped with costs, according to CNN. Musk has since backtracked on the demand, tweeting that SpaceX would continue funding Starlink.
Hill noted that Putin wants to reshape the international order and that his invasion of Ukraine is having a destabilizing effect by putting global energy and food security at risk. The Ukraine conflict already means “our world is not going to be the same as it was before,” she said.
“It’s ironic that Elon Musk, the man who has been talking about getting us to Mars, should be Putin’s messenger for the war in Ukraine, when we’re having a really hard time getting our act together on this planet,” Hill said.
Hill testified against then-President Donald Trump during his first impeachment, after working at the National Security Council as a senior European and Russian affairs expert. She also served in the administrations of Barack Obama and George W. Bush.