Russia Quits International Space Station, Vows to Build Its Own Instead

Russia is set to pull out of the International Space Station (ISS) project, thereby ending its involvement in one of the most symbolic enterprises of cooperation between nations for the good of humanity. The Kremlin will instead build its own space station after it stops sending cosmonauts to the ISS after 2024. “I think that by this time we will begin to form a Russian orbital station,” Yury Borisov, the Director General of Roscosmos, the state-owned space corporation, announced Tuesday. “The industry is in a difficult situation, and I see my main task, together with my colleagues, is not to drop, but to raise the bar and, first of all, provide the Russian economy with the necessary space services,” Borisov said, according to Russia’s Interfax news agency. Tensions around the ISS have been simmering since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Kremlin stopped cooperating with its international partners in April when Western sanctions were imposed.