Admire a speaking dog from Russia (5)
I believe the answer is:
laika
'dog from russia' is the definition.
(Laika the dog was sent to space by Russia)
'admire a' is the wordplay.
'admire' becomes 'laik' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'laik'+'a'='LAIKA'
'speaking' is the link.
I am not very happy about this link. It may be part of another bit of the clue.
(Other definitions for laika that I've seen before include "early space traveller" , "First dog in orbit" , "Soviet dog in space" .)