There is no country without contradictions, but the Russian Federation hit a high (and low) on Friday when it resumed its space program with the launch of a probe, Luna 25, on its way to Earth’s satellite. As part of his “special military operation”, a missile hit a house in the western region of Ukraine, in Ivano-Frankivsk, killing an eight-year-old child – it was the 500th since February 24, 2022. Hours earlier, a missile hit a hotel in Zaporizhiya used by United Nations officials and journalists, killing three people.
Russia is reclaiming the Soviet legacy, now in space, by resuming scientific exploration of the moon 47 years later. The race in this case is not with the United States, but with India. Both countries aimed their modules at the moon’s south pole, and if New Delhi were to launch Chandrayaan 3 in mid-July, the Russian space agency is aiming to arrive about 48 hours ahead of the Indian mission, on the 21st. soil that may contain ice in that region.
In addition to the creditable scientific advances in perspective, the mission has an important symbolic dimension: it restores a cause for Soviet pride – the USSR was at the forefront of space exploration until the Apollo 11 mission led man to set foot on the moon – and it shows that the country, despite being embroiled in a war with no solution in sight and for which it is subject to economic sanctions, is capable of developing a scientific and technological program alone. “It is above all a display of national power on the world stage,” history professor Asif Siddiqi told Sky News.
Moscow looks to space and the future, but continues to use methods condemned by the civilized world. The UN has criticized Thursday night’s attack on the Reikartz hotel in Zaporizhia, which killed one person and injured 16. a Russian attack,” said Denise Brown, UN coordinator for Ukraine.
On the day Luna 25 was launched in the far east of the country, four planes fired an equal number of Kinzhal missiles. One of the hypersonic missiles was shot down by the Kiev air defense, but the others made their way to the Ivano-Frankivsk region.
Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yuri Ihnat said military airfields in the region were targeted. “This time, our youth, our young pilots, who are about to leave for training, are in the crosshairs,” he said, referring to the training program on the F16 fighters. “The enemy wanted to hit our youth and deprive us of the prospect of a new rearmament with the latest models of Western equipment,” he concluded, without clarifying whether the attack caused casualties among the army.
What has been made public is that one of the missiles hit a residential area, causing an undetermined number of injuries and the death of an eight-year-old child, Volodymyr Balabanyk. Shortly before the attack, the prosecutor’s office of the Ukrainian General Prosecutor had taken stock of the children who had been victims of the war: 499 killed and 1,097 injured, two of them in the attack on the hotel in Zaporizhia.
Source: DN
