User:Sbb1413/Lost Cosmonauts

The Lost Cosmonauts (also known as Phantom Cosmonauts) are subjects of a belief that Soviet cosmonauts went to outer space before Yuri Gagarin and Soviet Union did not show the evidence. Conspiracy theorists believe that the Soviet Union tried to launch humans before Gagarin. Those flights killed at least two cosmonauts.

Vladimir Ilyushin

Major General Vladimir Sergeyevich Ilyushin (Russian: Владимир Серге́евич Ильюшин; March 31, 1927 – March 1, 2010) was a Soviet general and test pilot. He was the son of aerospace engineer Sergey Ilyushin. He spent most of his career as a test pilot for the Sukhoi OKB. Before Yuri Gagarin's first flight, British Communist Dennis Ogden wrote in a newspaper that the Soviet Union had launched a man into space. In the spaceflight, he had been injured. The next day French journalist Eduard Brobovsky named the man as Ilyushin.