Russian cosmonauts arrive at International Space Station wearing Ukraine colors

By AP 19 March 2022, 3:00 am

1 Edit

In this frame grab from video provided by Roscosmos, Russian cosmonauts Sergey Korsakov, Oleg Artemyev and Denis Matveyev are seen during a welcome ceremony after arriving at the International Space Station, Friday, March 18, 2022, the first new faces in space since the start of Russia’s war in Ukraine. The crew emerged from the Soyuz capsule wearing yellow flight suits with blue stripes, the colors of the Ukrainian flag. (Roscosmos via AP)

NEW YORK — Three Russian cosmonauts arrive at the International Space Station wearing flight suits in yellow and blue colors that match the Ukrainian flag.

The men are the first new arrivals on the space station since the start of the Russian war in Ukraine last month.

Video of one of the cosmonauts taken as the capsule prepared to dock with the space station show him wearing a blue flight suit. It was unclear what, if any, message the yellow uniforms they changed into were intended to send.

Oleg Artemyev is asked about the yellow flight suits when the newly arrived cosmonauts were able to talk to family back on Earth.

He says every crew chooses its own flight suits, so that they are not all the same.

3 russian cosmonauts on the international space station showing their solidarity with ukraine
pic.twitter.com/Gtiym5sMcI

— ian bremmer (@ianbremmer) March 19, 2022

“It became our turn to pick a color. But in fact, we had accumulated a lot of yellow material so we needed to use it. So that’s why we had to wear yellow,” he says.

Artemyev, Denis Matveyev and Sergey Korsakov blasted off successfully from the Russia-leased Baikonur launch facility in Kazakhstan in their Soyuz MS-21 spacecraft at 8:55 p.m. Friday (11:55 a.m. EDT). They smoothly docked at the station just over three hours later, joining two Russians, four Americans and a German on the orbiting outpost.