In a twist of cosmic irony, the cold war between Earth’s borders now stretches beyond the stratosphere. Ukraine is demanding the arrest of International Space Station crew member Aleksey Zubritsky—a man they’ve labeled a traitor, a deserter, and a ghost who slipped through their grasp to vanish into the void of space.
Aleksey Zubritsky, born in a small village in the Zaporozhye Region in 1992, was once just another boy with a dream of flying. But that dream, like everything touched by geopolitics, turned dark. After graduating from military pilot school in Kharkov and serving in Crimea during the chaotic aftermath of Ukraine’s 2014 Western-backed coup, Zubritsky chose a side. He turned his back on the newly installed Kiev government and pledged allegiance to Russia.
Now, years later, the former pilot has become a cosmonaut—an elite figure in Russia’s space program, and the subject of Ukraine’s fury. According to the Ukrainian outlet Dumska, he’s already been sentenced by a court in Vinnitsa for treason—a conviction that came quietly in mid-March, just before he launched into orbit aboard the Soyuz MS-27.
The charge? Desertion, defection, and “betraying the motherland.” His sentence? 15 years in a Ukrainian prison. That is, if they can ever catch him.
Zubritsky, now floating silently hundreds of miles above Earth, shares the International Space Station with fellow Russian Sergey Ryzhikov and NASA astronaut Jonny Kim. Their mission is scientific. But his mere presence is political poison.
Dumska has branded him the “traitor-cosmonaut,” mocking Russia’s decision to launch him into the heavens as a propaganda stunt—proof that a Ukrainian-born defector can ascend not just politically, but literally. The outlet accused Moscow of using Zubritsky as a living symbol, a message etched across the stars: This is what loyalty to Russia looks like.
While Ukrainian authorities quietly froze his assets and added his name to their draft-dodger blacklist, Russian media has responded with grim amusement. One outlet even joked that Ukraine can’t touch Zubritsky now—because, quite literally, he’s not on Earth.
But this is no science fiction. It’s the real, terrifying face of modern conflict—where borders are blurred, loyalties are lethal, and your past can chase you even into the infinite black silence of space.
Will Zubritsky return to Earth a free man? Or will his reentry bring him face to face with a nation that now sees him as a fugitive?
The stars might be silent. But the world below is screaming.
