Former NASA astronaut Scott Kelly has mentioned a few of his Russian cosmonaut colleagues have been "brainwashed" into supporting the invasion of Ukraine.
Kelly, who commanded the Worldwide Area Station (ISS) a number of instances throughout his NASA profession, has been an outspoken critic of the Russian authorities and its widely-condemned invasion of Ukraine in February this yr.
The previous astronaut commonly takes to Twitter to blast Russian officers and unfold details about Russia's actions in Ukraine to his 5.3 million followers—a few of whom are Russian.
No stranger to Russian tradition, Kelly has labored with cosmonauts for years and traveled to and from the ISS in Russian Soyuz spacecraft. He was additionally chosen, alongside cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko, to spend virtually a whole yr on the ISS between 2015 and 2016, after which he retired.
Kelly mentioned he has been shocked by the variety of Russian colleagues he spoke to who've expressed help for Putin's regime.
"I am a patriotic American, as a former army officer and an astronaut, and I might anticipate the Russians to be patriotic," he instructed Newsweek. "What sort of surprises me is that, at the very least from an look perspective, most of them are actually far down the rabbit gap, , believing that this was a crucial motion to stop Nazis and NATO from destroying Russia. And I do know this as a result of a few of them have instructed me this.
"In order that half shocked me. How simply a few of them had been misled and brainwashed, I suppose you possibly can say, and do not imagine what is actually occurring. I imply, I've had discussions with them concerning the atrocities which are dedicated, and so they imagine it is all pretend, that it is Ukrainians committing them and blaming them on the Russians, or it is simply made up."
The facility of Russia's propaganda machine has been properly documented all through its invasion of Ukraine. Below President Vladimir Putin's authorities, Russian media shops have been presenting what has been described as a sanitized model of occasions unfolding there.
Underreporting of casualties has been one side of this misinformation, as has framing Ukrainian forces as Nazis or nationalists. All of the whereas, exterior media sources such because the BBC and CNNhave been threatened and Russian police are overseeing the suppression of anti-war statements.
Kelly mentioned: "The opposite factor I get pretty usually is Tucker Carlson movies subtitled in Russian, [and the Russians are] saying, 'properly, because of this we're justified in doing this. Your personal man Tucker Carlson or Tulsi Gabbard, they're the reality tellers in the US, simply take a look at what they're saying.'
"It is completely maddening that we'd have Americans that work in media or as former public servants which are simply parroting Putin's speaking factors."
As highly effective as Russia's propaganda machine could also be, Kelly mentioned that not all of his former colleagues have taken it on board—although he didn't specify which of them.
"A number of the cosmonauts are like, 'that is all a f***ing travesty and ridiculous and I want I might depart this nation,'" he mentioned. "So I do not assume folks must put all Russians in the identical basket, significantly exterior of Russia.
"Just lately, I went to the Russian Samovar restaurant in New York Metropolis simply to help them, as a result of they had been getting some important backlash. And the household that owns that restaurant are half Russians, half Ukrainians and so they're all completely against Putin and what he is doing.
"They left Russia for that very cause through the Soviet period as a result of they weren't a free folks. And for them to be discriminated in opposition to on this nation or world wide can be fallacious."
For Kelly, Russia's invasion is a private problem. He has Ukrainian members of the family and Ukrainian pals—one in every of whom he helped to get their mom safely out of Kharkiv, which he described as a "critical operation". She is now secure abroad.
For a lot of Ukrainian residents nonetheless within the nation, the specter of violence lingers on.
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