Or are they going to chuck a bunch of 2002-caliber satellites up there?
The state of technology has little to do with it. The Russian philosophy has always been "good enough to get the job done, and not much more."
If you want to talk about re-creating a satellite capability, the Russians are probably in the best position to do so.
The Russians built their massive spacelift capability precisely because they didn't have the same technology as us -- they made up for their technological shortcomings by being able to build and launch more, less-capable satellites instead.
In the process, they essentially wrote the book on space station operations, unmanned rendezvous, quick-turnaround low-cost launch, satellite mass-production, and many other impressive achievements.