My sense is that this is market jockeying. Before now, and I could be very wrong, the only way to simply buy yourself a seat to orbit was on Russian rockets...

My sense is that this is market jockeying. Before now, and I could be very wrong, the only way to simply buy yourself a seat to orbit was on Russian rockets.... and should the future bring more of this they were probably hoping to be the obvious choice. NASA, even when it had it's own capacity, wasn't a threat since they weren't selling seats and when they failed to have a crew capacity, NASA became a customer. Now, you have the crew capacity in a private company that is on the verge of being able to offer these services for sale and they have no reason to limit themselves to just NASA. SpaceX owns the rockets, capsules, and know-how... which gets to another point in the press release. The larger differentiator between SpaceX and previous government contractors like Boeing isn't that they aren't both private companies, but that the SpaceX is basically selling a service whereas Boeing was selling bespoke equipment. If Russia wants to be commercially competitive in the service of launching cargo and people... SpaceX seems to be a credible threat and I read the press release as the Russians seeing them as such. Given how competitive SpaceX is for satellite launch services, I can't say I blame the Russians for having concern.