Three Russian cosmonauts, currently in the ISS, pictured posing with the flags of Luhansk People’s Republic and Donetsk People’s Republic in eastern Ukraine, have angered NASA.
On July 4, 2022 Roscosmos posted two pictures of cosmonauts Sergey Korsakov, Oleg Artemyev and Denis Matveev in the ISS.
In one of the pictures, they were seen raising the flag of Luhansk People’s Republic used by pro-Russian separatists in a war propaganda in Ukraine.
The cosmonauts also held another flag showing support for the Donetsk People’s Republic.
Russia seized, or as the Kremlin says liberated, the two regions in the ongoing war with Ukraine which started February, 2022.
Roscosmos in the post congratulated the Russian forces for liberating the two regions.
NASA in a statement on 7 July, 2022 said this amounts to using the International Space Station for political purposes.
This, it continued, is inconsistent with the aim of the station’s 15 international participating countries which is to advance space science and technology for peaceful purposes.
NASA strongly condemned their action and rebuked them for needlessly, mixing political propaganda with science in the ISS.
