In a photo published by Russia's space agency, cosmonauts on the International Space Station (ISS) have been seen holding the flags of the breakaway states Lugansk and Donetsk. Oleg Artemyev, Denis Matveyev and Sergey Korsakov are the three cosmonauts that appear in the photo captioned with “Liberation Day of the Lugansk People’s Republic! We celebrate both on Earth and in space,” as seen on the official Roscosmos telegram channel.

The caption further reads “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’," adding "This is a long-awaited day that residents of the occupied areas of the Lugansk region have been waiting for eight years. We are confident that 3 July 2022 will forever go down in the history of the republic. Citizens of the allied Donetsk People’s Republic, wait!”

On June 3rd, a Russian Progress cargo spacecraft, without any crew, docked with the space station. The spacecraft departed from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and was, according to NASA, carrying approximately three tons of supplies. As such, it was unclear how the flags made it to the space station.

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The ISS includes, alongside the Russian cosmonauts, American NASA astronauts as well as European Space Agency (ESA) astronauts. The Western astronauts did not comment on the flag raising and instead Tweeted about the US' 4th of July earlier on Monday.

The three Russian cosmonauts, Artemyev, Matveyev and Korsakov, were the first Russian astronauts to board the International Space Station (ISS) during the ongoing war in Ukraine, which started on February 24.

The Ukrainian armed forces retreated from the eastern strategic city of Lysychansk, Kiev, on Sunday, following weeks of fierce fighting with the Russian and the allied LPR forces over the city.

Read more: Allied Russian, LPR forces have full control of Lysychansk