Three Russian cosmonauts safely arrived at the International Space Station on Friday — and their fashion choices have made headlines across the globe.
Oleg Artemyev, Denis Matveev and Sergey Korsakov arrived at the ISS, after blasting off from a Russian facility in Kazakhstan in their Soyuz MS-21 spacecraft.
A video of the men entering the station to greet their fellow crewmates drew immediate attention. It showed the new arrivals wearing bright yellow flight suits with blue accents — colors that appear to match those of the Ukrainian flag.
Back on Earth, yellow and blue have been used in accessories, social media avatars and even at the top of the Empire State Building to show support for the people of Ukraine during the bloody invasion by Russian forces.
Even though the cosmonauts didn’t publicly say the meaning behind their fashion, several social media users applauded their overall look and the “not subtle” choice of colors.
“Three Russian cosmonauts who just docked with the ISS arrive in Ukrainian yellow!” former NASA astronaut Scott Kelly wrote on Twitter in English and Russian.
“Wow. Just wow. Well done,” tweeted Terry Virts, also a former NASA astronaut.
In a videoconference from the station, Artemyev, the mission commander, explained that “we had accumulated a lot of yellow material so we needed to use it. So that’s why we had to wear yellow.”
Russia was quick to dismiss the idea that their colors showed solidarity with Ukrainians.
“Sometimes yellow is just yellow,” the press service for Russia’s space agency said on its Telegram channel, according to Reuters.
“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 ... To see the Ukrainian flag everywhere and in everything is crazy,” the agency added.
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