Kiev seeking arrest of man aboard space station – media
Ukrainian-born Russian cosmonaut Aleksey Zubritsky, who arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) on Tuesday, faces a possible 15-year jail term for treason if he is ever apprehended by Kiev, according to media reports.
His sentencing by a court for treason was reported just weeks before he traveled to space alongside fellow Russian Sergey Ryzhikov and NASA astronaut Jonny Kim.
The Ukrainian newspaper Dumska has denounced the retired military pilot as a “traitor-cosmonaut” and deserter following his criminal conviction by a court in Vinnitsa in mid-March. A judge also ordered the confiscation of his property.
According to Zubritsky’s biography, he was born in 1992 in a village in Zaporozhye Region, which is now part of Russia but is still claimed by Kiev. He graduated from a military school in Kharkov as a pilot and served at an airbase in Sevastopol, Crimea during the 2014 Western-backed coup in the Ukrainian capital.
In response to the overthrow of the elected government, Crimeans overwhelmingly voted to break away from Ukraine and join Russia. Zubritsky was among the numerous Ukrainian military personnel who rejected the new government in Kiev and continued their careers in the Russian Armed Forces. He applied to the space program in 2017 and was confirmed as a flight engineer for the Soyuz MS-27 mission last August.
Dumska celebrated Zubritsky’s conviction and suggested that he was not selected due to his qualifications, but for ideological reasons – to showcase a “Ukrainian-turned-Russian who is now going to space,” while neglecting to address the timing of his sentencing. The outlet lamented the fact that the US will likely have no objections to him boarding the ISS.
Russian media has covered Zubritsky’s case with amusement. The outlet Shot reported that the cosmonaut is listed as a draft dodger, though Ukrainian officials cannot apprehend him “because he is in space.”
