Did Elon Musk Just Challenge Putin To A Battle With Ukraine As The Stakes!?

Over the last few weeks, thousands of people have been displaced, injured and lives have been lost as Russia advances in its invasion of Ukraine. Many countries and people of power have had diplomatic conversations with President Vladimir Putin of Russia, all to no avail.

Now, it seems that Elon Musk is taking matters into his own hands, literally. The billionaire businessman recently challenged President Putin to a "single combat" match with "stakes are Ukraine." Read on to learn more about his challenge and the aid he has offered Ukraine.

On March 14th, Musk made the tweet challenging Putin to a single combat match with the stakes of Russia's Ukraine invasion. The tweet read, "I hereby challenge Vladimir Putin to single combat. Stakes are Ukraine."

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1503327421839417344

He wrote part of the tweet in English and the rest in Cyrillic script, a writing system used for several languages in countries across Europe and Asia. Shortly after, he made a follow-up tweet to the original, confirming his seriousness about the challenge.

In the second tweet, he tagged the official Russian presidency's Twitter account and wrote in Russian, "Do you agree to this fight?" He hasn't made any other related tweets and is yet to clarify how the fight would occur or if Putin responded privately.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine started on February 24th and has affected millions of lives across the country. As Russian forces advance and Ukrainian citizens repel their efforts, there is mounting pressure on both countries' leaders to resolve the conflict and end the destruction and bloodshed.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been very open with his citizens and recently shared that the diplomatic talks have been "pretty good." The Russian officials agreed with this sentiment and said their discussions last weekend have made "substantial progress."

The next round of talks will hold on March 15th, and there is a lot of hope that there will be more progress and the war will finally end. Both countries have suffered severely from the war, with Russia being dealt heavy sanctions and Ukraine suffering so much destruction and loss of life.

Last week, Musk tweeted that his Starlink satellite internet service is currently "active in Ukraine" and that "more terminals are en route" to the country to help citizens. This came after Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine's Vice Prime Minister, tweeted at Musk.

In his tweet, Fedorov requested Musk to send Starlink systems to Ukraine as the Russian invasion had disrupted internet access for many Ukrainians, and they could no longer access emergency information and updates.

President Zelenskyy later tweeted at Musk to thank him. His tweet read, "Talked to @elonmusk. I'm grateful to him for supporting Ukraine with words and deeds. Next week we will receive another batch of Starlink systems for destroyed cities. Discussed possible space projects. But I'll talk about this after the war."

With the heavy sanctions being leveled at Russia and their retaliatory sanctions against the United States and several other countries, it is no surprise that the ridicule and shunning have reached the space level.

It started when Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Russia's space agency, responded to the US's sanctions earlier this month by saying, "In a situation like this, we can't supply the United States with our world's best rocket engines. Let them fly on something else, their broomsticks; I don't know what."

In response, an unnamed director said on SpaceX's live stream, "Time to let the American broomstick fly and hear the sounds of freedom," just before the Falcon 9 rocket launched, sending 48 satellites into orbit from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.