Three Russian cosmonauts have arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) wearing flight suits in yellow and blue colours that match the Ukrainian flag.
The men were 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 showed 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 was asked about the yellow flight suits when the newly arrived cosmonauts were able to talk to family back on Earth.
He said every crew chooses its own flight suits, so that they are not all the same.
“It became our turn to pick a colour. 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 said.
Mr Artemyev, Denis Matveyev and Sergey Korsakov blasted off successfully from the Russia-leased Baikonur launch facility in Kazakhstan in their Soyuz MS-21 spacecraft on Friday.
Three cosmonauts docked to the station's Prichal module inside the Soyuz MS-21 crew ship today at 3:12pm ET. They'll meet the Exp 66 crew in about 2.5 hours. More... https://t.co/ceOb4qU70v pic.twitter.com/HefuWfyl47
— International Space Station (@Space_Station) March 18, 2022
They smoothly docked at the station just over three hours later, joining two Russians, four Americans and a German on the orbiting outpost.
The war has resulted in cancelled spacecraft launches and broken contracts.
Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin has warned that the US would have to use “broomsticks” to fly into space after Russia said it would stop supplying rocket engines to US companies.
Many worry, however, that Mr Rogozin is putting decades of a peaceful off-planet partnership at risk, most notably at the ISS.
Nasa administrator Bill Nelson played down Mr Rogozin’s comments, telling The Associated Press: “That’s just Dmitry Rogozin. He spouts off every now and then. But at the end of the day, he’s worked with us.
“The other people that work in the Russian civilian space programme, they’re professional.
“They don’t miss a beat with us, American astronauts and American mission control.
“Despite all of that, up in space, we can have a co-operation with our Russian friends, our colleagues.”
Nasa astronaut Mark Vande Hei, who on Tuesday broke the US single spaceflight record of 340 days, is due to leave the International Space Station with two Russians aboard a Soyuz capsule for a touchdown in Kazakhstan on March 30.
In April, another three Nasa astronauts and one Italian are set to blast off for the space station.
