Russia slaps US for ignoring Gagarin on Spaceflight Day

MOSCOW – Russia’s Foreign Ministry has accused the U.S. State Department of spreading disinformation by not mentioning Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin in a Facebook post about the International Day of Human Space Flight.

The United Nations General Assembly in 2011 proclaimed the annual observance held on the anniversary of the solo one-orbit mission that made Gagarin the first man in space on April 12, 1961.

A post on the State Department’s Russian-language page Sunday noted that the first manned spaceflight took place 59 years ago but didn’t name the person who who performed it.

“Not noting this is disinformation and a base trick of the post-truth epoch,” the Russian ministry said on its own page.