Roscosmos CEO Dmitry Rogozin on April 12 sharply responded to the congratulations in the US Department of State’s account on the International Day of Human Space Flight.
In its post on Facebook, the American Foreign Ministry did not mention the name of the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin, or the fact that the launch was carried out by the Soviet Union. In addition, the State Department accompanied the congratulations with a photograph of the American astronaut.
“Assholes. Superpowers do not behave like that, ”Rogozin responded on Twitter.
Aleksey Pushkov, head of the Federation Council Committee on Information Policy, was outraged by the publication of the State Department. He recalled that the holiday is international, and the achievement belongs to the USSR and Soviet scientists.
The Russian Embassy in the United States declared the Department of State “unconscious”, pointing out that the UN had declared April 12 International Day of Human Space Flight in memory of the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. Among other things, the diplomats reminded the American side of the message of US President John F. Kennedy to Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev with congratulations after Gagarin’s flight and about the recent flight to the ISS by NASA astronaut Mark Vanda Hye on the Soyuz spacecraft, which bears the name of the space pioneer.
April 12, 2021 marks the 60th anniversary of the world’s first space flight, which was performed by Yuri Gagarin on the Vostok spacecraft. The flight duration was 108 minutes.