As another sign of the increasingly intense Russian-American rivalry regarding Ukraine, the Russian Space Agency announced its withdrawal from the international project.
After Moscow fulfills its obligations to its partners, it will withdraw from the International Space Station (ISS) in 2024. This was jointly announced by the Russian President and the Director General of the Roscosmos Space Agency. Yuri Borisov said that they have to think about everything, and now the most important thing is the space opportunities that they can use to support the Russian economy – he quoted his words before Mirror.
Cooperation ceased in April, after the implementation of the first sanctions against Russia. Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Roscosmos, declared indignantly that he was no longer ready to cooperate with NASA or the European Space Agency.
In July, NASA strongly criticized the political activities of Russian cosmonauts working on the International Space Station. The statement appeared after Roscosmos published photos showing three Russians waving the flags of the arbitrarily declared People’s Republics of Luhansk and Donetsk. As they wrote, the liberation of the lands of Eastern Ukraine should be celebrated not only on Earth, but also in space.
It is not yet clear whether this NASA criticism has caused the Russians to withdraw from the International Space Agency project.
(Cover image: International Space Station. Image: NASA via Getty Images)
