Russia's space agency has dismissed reports suggesting cosmonauts joining the International Space Station (ISS) had chosen to wear yellow suits with a blue trim in support of Ukraine.
Yesterday three Russian cosmonauts arrived at the International Space Station wearing the colours of the Ukrainian flag.
The Soyuz capsule carrying Commander Oleg Artemyev as well as Denis Matveev and Sergey Korsakov docked at the orbiting platform three hours after take off.
In a twist, the new arrivals were all wearing the distinctive yellow and blue colours associated with the country Vladimir Putin's forces invaded last month.
On Saturday afternoon Dmitry Olegovich Rogozin, director general of national space agency Roscosmos since 2018 and a former deputy prime minister, claimed the outfits had nothing to do with Ukraine.
"Sometimes yellow simply means yellow," he tweeted in Russians.
"If the Bandera geeks think that because of them we will change our colour tastes, repaint the Vostochny launch complex in gray-brown-crimson, the coat of arms of MSTU Bauman in orange (no, orange doesn’t fit either)
"Under no circumstances will we force cosmonaut graduates of Bauman University not to wear the colours of the coat of arms of their alma mater, then they are deeply mistaken."
Rogozin was referring to Stepan Bandera in his tweet, a Ukrainian far-right terrorist who died sixty years ago.
In a live-streamed news conference from the ISS on Friday, veteran cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev, the mission commander, was asked about the suits.
"Every crew picks a colour that looks different. It was our turn to pick a colour," he said.
"The truth is, we had accumulated a lot of yellow fabric, so we needed to use it up. That's why we had to wear yellow flight suits."
Roscosmos' press service said on its Telegram channel "Sometimes yellow is just yellow".
"The flight suits of the new crew are made in the colours of the emblem of the Bauman Moscow State Technical University, which all three cosmonauts graduated from....
"To see the Ukrainian flag everywhere and in everything is crazy."
Several veteran astronauts read the choice of suit as less of a coincidence than a nod to Ukraine, which was invaded by Russia on February 24.
"Three Russian cosmonauts who just docked with the ISS arrive in Ukrainian yellow!" former NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, who flew a yearlong mission on the space station with cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko from March 2015 to March 2016, tweeted in Russian and English.
Terry Virts, a NASA astronaut and former Space Station visitor, tweeted: "Wow. Just wow. Well done. За экипаж!"
None of the three newly arrived cosmonauts hails from Ukraine.
Artemyev was born in present-day Latvia, Matveev is from St. Petersburg and Korsakov was born in what is now Kyrgyzstan.
