26 fatalities due to bear attacks this year: https://tass.ru/obschestvo/28211259 https://eia.media/ru/article/society/6aa937759a7947f75201876... https://www.rbc.ru/society/15/09/2026/6aa937759a7947f7520187... This year bear encounters made headlines in Russia, but the number of fatalities isn't unusual. Records is 80/year in 1985, 1986 and 1996. Brown bears don't see us as food as long as there is some other food available. If food is scarce this year (some random dude on the internet says that there were an early thaw followed by freeze in 2024 that cause pine cone yield in 2026 to fail) they might attack. Either out of desperation or when encountered over a food source (i. e. garbage dump) and mistakes a human for a competitor.

You might be underestimating how remote some Soviet capsules landed. If they overshot their landing site they might be alone in the wilderness for days until rescue teams arrived

"Kosmonaut survives space mission, gets mauled by bear protecting her cub" is not a great headline. Bringing gun was relatively cheap insurance

Brown bears attack people in Russia quite frequently [1].

[1] https://meduza.io/en/feature/2026/09/11/russia-has-a-bear-pr...

I think it's important not to overgeneralize with something that might potentially kill you. The brown bears in Japan can be deadly. A 380 kg and 2.7-m-tall brown bear, which twice attacked the village of Tomamae, killing 7 people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ussuri_brown_bear#Interactions...

What about lunar bears or Saturn bears? Those seem to be heavily armed.

https://youtu.be/pvjgIxuVdo4?is=7sF64RM0qTNqJguw

If you’re a pilot or cosmonaut in Siberia, you might not have come down as planned and might be there for a while. An injured, possibly bleeding human could be easy prey. They also have tigers…

"Generally" implies there are exceptions. Would hate to be unprepared.

Landing in remote part of Siberia is not a typical situation and many typical assumptions do not apply.

It's never excessive to carry a gun.