NASA and Boeing Launch Starliner Plane to ISS Stasiun Station

Russia has confirmed it will withdraw from the International Space Station (ISS), as early as 2024. The decision was due to sanctions imposed on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine.

“The decision has been made, we are under no obligation to talk about it openly,” Dmitry Rogozin, director general of the federal space agency Roscosmos, told the state-owned Rossiya-24 TV channel, according to Russia’s independent news agency TASS.

Rogozin did not say when Russia’s involvement in the ISS project would end, though he insisted it would provide at least one year’s notice “in accordance with our obligations.”

Russian space analysts have noted that Russia never agreed to extend its involvement in the ISS beyond 2024. Meanwhile, the US space agency NASA and other international partners now want the project to be extended to at least 2030.

Rogozin, a seasoned politician with close ties to Russian president Vladimir Putin, has a history of making strong statements.

He posted on Twitter on February 24 – the day after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine – that any international sanctions imposed on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine would “destroy” the partnership between NASA and Roscosmos that kept the space station operational and aloft.

And he reiterated that comment that normal relations between ISS partners can only be restored after the “complete and unconditional lifting of illegal sanctions.”

–