In addition to the war of annihilation and genocide, the Putin regime is currently pursuing a form of politics that is called passive-aggressive messaging in psychology. This includes the withdrawal from the International Space Station program, which Russia announced on Tuesday. The pattern is always the same. Under the pretext of strictly adhering to the rules, Russia breaks with them. The rejection of international space travel is not the first example.
This messaging is not particularly subtle. All of these messages can be translated into simple words, but should then be presented in the tone of Robert de Niro, Al Pacino or Marlon Brando. Because the method does not come from world politics, but from mafia films. So: The arrest of American basketball player Brittney Griner in Moscow? “Hey America! We’ll not only get you, but also yours!” The maintenance work on the Nord Stream Pipeline? “Hey Europe! There’s the hammer with the gas!” The cancellation of the ISS program? “Hey world! (insert swear word here) you!” Who knows the movie “The Godfather” – the space station in this case is the severed horse’s head in the bed. “There is your symbol of international cooperation, of humanity’s noble ambitions with science, of the vulnerability of the planet in the vastness of the universe.”
The recently ousted head of the Russian Space Agency, Dmitry Rogozin, was even more direct. In March, he threatened to simply let the American astronauts on the ISS rot up there on the next return flight of a Russian spacecraft. Shortly before, he had announced that he would crash the 500-ton space station on America or Europe. When Elon Musk provided Ukraine with satellite internet connections, he tweeted: “For this, Elon, you will be held accountable as an adult.”
Wars and conflicts were far away for the residents of the space station
For astronauts and cosmonauts, such political banter is usually no more than white noise in the atmosphere down on planet Earth. The German astronaut Ulrich Walter was recently a guest at Bavarian TV’s Space Night and told how a stay on the space station changes life forever: from the view of this celestial body and how one realizes up there that humanity can only live together can survive on it. But he also said that there is hardly any time for contemplation up there, because you are busy around the clock with scientific work, sports and everyday life in weightlessness. In any case, for the inhabitants of the space station, wars and conflicts were literally very far away.
But that is also part of the message of the exit. Godfather Putin can strike anywhere. Maybe even real. 19 countries have military programs in space. Also Germany. This is mainly for clarification. It is not known with certainty whether there are already killer satellites in space that could destroy other satellites or even a space station. It is suspected that the Kosmos-2499 satellite, which Russia launched in 2014, may be armed. Then, in the year of the invasion of Crimea, Putin would have managed to expand his policy of aggression not just across the world, but into outer space.