(NewsGlobal.com)- As hostilities escalate between the U.S. and Moscow, the head of Russia’s space agency, Dmitry Rogozin, upped the ante by posting a disturbing video on the Telegram app that threatened the life of an American astronaut. As the Russians invade Ukraine, with many atrocities being reported, this alarming act would be a particularly cruel one.
Rogozin, a Putin loyalist, tweeted a fantasy video, created by the Roscosmos television studio, where Mark Vande Hei (the record holder for the longest space flight) is cut loose from the space station he shares with two Russian cosmonauts.
Russian gov't-controlled RIA Novosti @rianru posted a video on Telegram made by @Roscosmos where cosmonauts say goodbye to Mark Vande Hei on #ISS, depart, and then the Russian segment detaches from the rest of ISS. @Rogozin is clearly threatening the ISS program. #NASA #Ukraine pic.twitter.com/fj2coK1xR1
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) March 5, 2022
The video shows the Russians callously waving goodbye to Vande Hei as they decouple the U.S. and Russia segments of the space station, leaving our American hero abandoned with an uncertain, but deadly fate.
An additional video shows the Russians covering up the U.S. flag on the side of a rocket, sending the message that we are no longer allies in space exploration, and our international partnership dissolved.
NASA astronaut, Mark Kelly, told the Wall Street Journal that he was enraged by the Russians, adding that “they agreed to be responsible for his safety, getting him to the space station and getting him home. For me, that kind of just crossed the line.”
Vande Hei is scheduled to land peacefully in Kazakhstan twenty-one days from now, sitting beside two Russian crewmates in a Russian spacecraft. One wonders if the tension has mounted within that vessel.
The Russian state news agency downplayed the severity of the video, insisting that it only “jokingly demonstrated the possibility of Russia withdrawing from the ISS project.”
The Military Times reported the Russian claim that the video was simply a joke. But with the current state of the world, who on earth is laughing at this tone deaf and ill-timed “humor”?
