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Russian Cosmonauts Now Wear Ukraine's National Colors

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
March 19, 2022
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NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

8 responses to “Russian Cosmonauts Now Wear Ukraine's National Colors”

  1. Jack says:
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    It will be an interesting debrief when they return to Earth.

  2. David Fowler says:
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    Wrong interpretation, alas.

    When the Soyuz MS-21 crew arrived at the International Space Station yesterday, they were clothed in jumpsuits that people (understandably) thought was commentary or protest on the Ukraine invasion, as they looked very much like the colors of the Ukrainian flag.

    Alas, this is almost certainly not the case. All three cosmonauts are graduates of the Moscow State Technical University named for N.E. Bauman (Московский государственный технический университет им. Н. Э. Баумана), whose school colors are yellow and blue. All the symbology of the flight, including the attire, the crew patch, and the Soyuz capsule’s name (Korolёv, named after the legendary chief designer of the Soviet space program, and Bauman graduate) are oriented around MGTU im. Bauman. The commander of the flight, Oleg Artem’yev, has worn a similar suit on a previous flight. And I know the guys who designed the patch for the crew, and they confirmed this detail.

    The cosmonauts’ kits are packed long before the flight, and it seems unlikely that this was some sort of flag protest, however, I cannot completely discount that that someone who was aware of the optics “allowed” this to happen, as something of a subversive action.
    We may never know.

    • David Fowler says:
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      Artem’yev in 2015: https://uploads.disquscdn.c

    • Steve Pemberton says:
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      I suspect it was a bit more complicated. The crew was announced in May 2021. Certainly the crew members realized immediately that they all went to the same school, and so the colors idea could very plausibly have been thought of shortly afterwards. However as their flight drew closer and the events in Ukraine unfolded there is almost no way that the optics of the situation were not noticed, and it’s hard to believe that it was not discussed at high levels. Interesting to ponder whether in those discussions they thought it would be interpreted that the crew was silently protesting the war, or whether they thought it would be seen as purposeful insolence. My guess is that they considered both possibilities, but knowing Rogozin he probably enjoyed knowing that he could afterwards shame people for their conjectures. Similar to how they put out the Mark Vande Hei video, then Rogozin afterwards insulted as “hysterical” anyone who expressed concern about Russia leaving him in space.

  3. Ben Russell-Gough says:
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    Remember that this was supposed to be a cake walk that was over in a couple of weeks or less. Those jumpsuits were likely chosen by Roscosmos to ‘celebrate the liberation of Ukraine’ or something similar; embarrassing now.

    I’d advise Dmitri Rogozin to stay away from windows in tall buildings; important people in Russia who cause public embarrassments have a statistically improbably high likelihood of falling out of them to their deaths.

    • David Fowler says:
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      They would have been designed months ago, and if that was the case, they would not have used Ukrainian colors. It’s also not the first flight that Artem’yev used a yellow jumpsuit.