Three Russian astronauts who arrived on the International Space Station entered wearing yellow overalls and some blue elements. The image immediately went viral because the colors of the cosmonaut’s uniforms are the same as the Ukrainian flag. A hardtomiss coincidence considering that according to Agi reports, the Russian uniform is usually blue and at least one of them wore it before takeoff. But both those directly involved and the Moscow Space Agency denied that it was a message in support of Ukraine. (LIVE UPDATES SKY TG24 SPECIAL REFUGEE MAP VIDEOS AND REPORTS FROM UKRAINE).
“We had to take yellow”
deepening
War in Ukraine: the reports and live coverage of Sky TG24. VIDEO
Coincidence could lead to the assumption that the colors of the suits are a possible antiwar message from the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin. But according to the Guardian, one of the three astronauts, Oleg Artemyev, explained that each group can choose the color of the uniforms: “When it was our turn, we had accumulated a lot of yellow material and so we had to use that. That’s why we were dressed in yellow,” he told the family on Earth.
Space Agency: “They are the colors of their university”
The Russian space agency also later intervened, denying that Russian cosmonauts arriving on the International Space Station wore yellow suits with blue accents in support of Ukraine. “Sometimes yellow is just yellow,” Roscosmos’ press service said on its Telegram channel, the Guardian reports. “The flight suits of the new crew are made in the colors of the emblem of the Bauman Moscow State Technical University, where all three cosmonauts graduated. Seeing the Ukrainian flag everywhere and in everything is crazy.” The three astronauts who reached the International Space Station are Denis Matveyev, Oleg Artemyev and Sergey Korsakov. Two other Russian astronauts, four Americans and one German were waiting for them on the ISS.