"I'm pleased to announce that we now have an agreement that paves the way for Finland and Sweden to join NATO. Turkey, Finland and Sweden have signed a memorandum that addresses Turkey's concerns, including around arms exports, and the fight against terrorism," Stoltenberg said Tuesday after crunch talks in Madrid.
NATO leaders will formally invite Finland and Sweden to join the alliance Wednesday after Turkey inked a deal to drop its objections, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said.
In a message posted to the official Roscosmos Telegram channel, Oleg Artemyev, Denis Matveyev and Sergey Korsakov appear to be holding the flags of the two occupied territories, whose occupiers are recognised as legitimate authorities only by Russia and Syria among UN member states.
Roscosmos goes on in the statement to say: “Roscosmos and our cosmonauts, who are working today at the International Space Station, join the congratulations of the head of the LPR, Leonid Pasechnik, on the ‘new Day of the Great Victory’.
“This is a long-awaited day that residents of the occupied areas of the Luhansk region have been waiting for eight years. We are confident that 3 July 2022 will for ever go down in the history of the republic. Citizens of the allied Donetsk People’s Republic, wait!”
It is unclear how the flags might have arrived at the ISS, although on 3 June an uncrewed Russian Progress cargo spacecraft docked with the space station, having departed from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. According to Nasa, it was carrying almost three tons of food, fuel and supplies.
Also at the station working with the three Russian cosmonauts are Nasa’s American astronauts Jessica Watkins, Robert Hines and Kjell N Lindgren, as well as the Italian Samantha Cristoforetti of the European Space Agency (ESA).
The crew, Nasa and the ESA have not commented on the flag-raising. Hines tweeted about US Independence Day on Monday.
“Happy Birthday, America! … I am so thankful for the opportunities our country provides. God Bless America!” he wrote, adding emojis of the US flag, a hamburger and a hotdog.
Artemyev, Matveyev and Korsakov were the first Russian crew to join the ISS since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began on 24 February, and when they emerged from their Soyuz capsule in yellow uniforms it was widely seen as a message of solidarity with Ukraine. However, the cosmonauts were coy about that interpretation. Asked about the suits at the time, Artemyev said every crew chose their own.
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