The former head of Rocosmos sends a shrapnel to Macron

The former head of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, sent fragments of a French howitzer to French President Emmanuel Macron. Rogozin was hit by shrapnel in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, in December. And the former head of Roscosmos said, on Wednesday, that he had sent the part in a letter to the French ambassador in Moscow, Pierre Levy, with a request to pass it on to Macron.

Rogozin posted the message accompanying the fragment on the Telegram online service. “In this envelope accompanying my letter,” he wrote, “you see a fragment of a shell from a French 155-mm Caesar artillery unit.” “It pierced my right shoulder and lodged in the fifth cervical vertebra, about a millimeter from killing or abolishing me.” The French Embassy in Moscow declined to comment on the letter when asked by Agence France-Presse.

Rogozin is a former Russian deputy prime minister and supporter of the military operation in Ukraine. He said he was hit by shrapnel during a “business meeting” in a hotel restaurant in Donetsk in December.

However, Russia’s Russian Radio 24 reported at the time that Rogozin celebrated his 59th birthday with guests and musicians at the hotel’s restaurant. The radio showed pictures believed to be of the building, showing a partially destroyed roof and debris lying around it.

According to his own statements, Rogozin used to stay at the hotel regularly when he was in the Donetsk region. Donetsk is one of four regions of Ukraine that Moscow announced its annexation in September.