Russian pensioners urge Vladimir Putin to save Starliner astronauts

One of the more bizarre propaganda phenomena in Russia of late is seemingly spontaneous groups of elderly Russian pensioners gathering outdoors and promoting some random piece of inflammatory propaganda.

From a Western perspective, these events are clearly fabricated and very funny. For example, last year A group of serious looking elderly womenA woman, and a few men, urged Russia to “take back Alaska” in an effort to protect the United States from fascism. One of the women in the video also called for a military alliance with Mexico, saying: “In order to effectively combat fascism, we must establish military relations with Mexico to prevent fascism from spreading further. We must form a military alliance with Mexico.”

There is full Telegram channels Dedicated to these “Putin Teams” videos, you can You can find them on YouTube. It is not clear whether these “man on the street” videos have any impact on Russian public opinion, but there are clearly those in the Kremlin who believe they are helping to shape domestic opinions.

These videos may have been invisible to the public outside Russia, except that a former Ukrainian parliamentarian and government adviser named Anton Gerashchenko was sharing them on his Twitter and Telegram accounts, with subtitles. His aim was to highlight the absurd lengths to which Russian propagandists would go.

Yes, there is a space corner.

All this is quite normal in terms of propaganda except for the fact that Gerashchenko had resigned on Monday. Share a video on Telegram Seniors are pleading with Russian President Vladimir Putin — or, as they put it, “dear Vladimir Vladimirovich” — to save NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who are currently aboard the International Space Station.

these Worried The citizens of Krasnodar, a city in southern Russia, seem to be emotionally invested in the fate of the American astronauts. (They certainly aren’t reading from cue cards.)

“There are two American astronauts in space right now,” says one man. “They have been in trouble for two months. Their Boeing plane broke down during the flight. Their engines failed, but they somehow managed to reach the International Space Station. Now they don’t know how to get back. We ask you to help them.”

Members of Putin’s squad insist that only Russia can help bring Wilmore and Williams home. Among the themes covered in the video is that the astronauts should not be treated as hostages because they “don’t bear the blame for Biden’s aggression.” Another woman adds that time is of the essence because Wilmore and Williams “have been in space for a long time at their advanced age.” Wilmore is 61, while Williams is 58.

There’s a lot going on here, but let’s start with age. Wilmore and Williams’ age doesn’t matter, because they’re both healthy. What’s more, one of the three Russians in orbit, Oleg Kononenko, is 60 years old and has spent nearly 1,100 days in space, accumulating far more time in orbit than any of the Americans. Where’s the concern about Kononenko’s age and radiation exposure?

What was true before is no longer true.

Perhaps most ridiculously, the Kremlin continues to promote the lie that the Americans rely on the Soyuz rocket and its spacecraft to get to and from the International Space Station.

For a long time, this He was True. In the wake of the space shuttle. Colombia In 2003, when two NASA astronauts were scheduled to return to Earth on a future space shuttle mission, Ken Bowersox and Don Pettit returned to Earth on a Soyuz spacecraft. Two years after the accident, they were on another space shuttle mission. ColombiaThe Soyuz was the only spacecraft NASA sent into space with crew, and that happened again for nearly a decade after the Space Shuttle was retired in 2011. If you ask NASA, they will say the Russians have been essential and reliable partners.

This gap in U.S. spaceflight capability has been a powerful tool for Russian propaganda. In 2014, amid tensions over Russia’s seizure of Crimea, a Russian defense official named Dmitry Rogozin declared, He said If Americans don’t like what Russia is doing in Crimea, they can use a trampoline to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station. Even a decade later, this is still one of the best space publications ever written.

But since then, Rogozin and Russians seeking to exploit the Soyuz spacecraft for propaganda purposes have returned to this well many times. Most recently, in 2022, Rogozin was critical. The United States calls its launch vehicles “brooms.”

This was just plain stupid, and conveniently ignores the rise of SpaceX. Using its Falcon 9 main rocket, SpaceX has launched more than 80 missions so far in 2024. By contrast, Russia’s space ventures have a total of nine orbital launches.

SpaceX and Falcon 9 have also been launching NASA astronauts (and some Russians) to the ISS since 2020. That’s why, contrary to the views of Putin’s team in Krasnodar, NASA has a viable way to get Wilmore and Williams home. If necessary, they’ll return home on the Crew 9 mission, which is scheduled to launch next month.