On Friday, something strange happened: Russian astronauts arriving at the International Space Station boarded wearing yellow suits with blue stripes. Perhaps that doesn’t sound on its face unusual, but those colors happen to be the same as the flag for Ukraine, the nation that for the last month has been invaded by Russian forces. This led some to suspect whether it was a covert political statement. But Russian authorities swear the answer is no.
According to the BBC, Roscosmos, Russia’s equivalent of NASA, were quick to issue a response to their astronauts’ curious sartorial choice. “Sometimes yellow is just yellow,” they wrote. “The design of the uniform was agreed upon long before current events.”
They also repeated one interpretation made by an astronomer: that the colors are a nod to something else. “The flight suits of the new crew are made in the colors of the emblem of the Bauman Moscow State Technical University, which all three cosmonauts graduated from,” Roscosmos said. “To see the Ukrainian flag everywhere and in everything is crazy.”
When boarding the ISS, the astronauts said nothing political, about Ukraine or elsewhere. One of them, Oleg Artemyev, even offered a much more mundane, if cryptic explanation. “It became our turn to pick a color,” Artemyev said. “We had accumulated a lot of yellow material so we needed to use it,” he joked. “That’s why we had to wear yellow.”
Since the Ukraine invasion began in late February, Russian authorities have shut down all independent media outlets, suppressed most social media services, and have generally attempted to keep its populace in a propagandistic bubble. That hasn’t stopped some from finding creative, brave ways to get the word out about what’s really going on in the neighboring country. Meanwhile, the invasion has led to some strange reactions from the American rightwing.
(Via BBC)