Russia’s space director said on Saturday that normal ties between partners would only be restored at the International Space Station (ISS) and other joint space projects when the West lifts sanctions against Moscow, Reuters reported. 

Russia faces the weight of western sanctions for choosing to send troops into Ukraine on February 24. 

Dmitry Rogozin, head of Roscosmos the Russian space agency, said in a social media post that sanctions “kill Russian economy and plunge our people into despair and hunger, to get our country on its knees”, adding, “they won’t succeed in it, but the intentions are clear”. 

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Rogozin further said, “That’s why I believe that the restoration of normal relations between the partners at the International Space Station (ISS) and other projects is possible only with full and unconditional removal of illegal sanctions”. 

The director elaborated that Roscosmos would propose to Russian authorities, when to end cooperation over the ISS, with space agencies of Western countries and their supporters. 

Despite the ongoing tensions between Russia and the West, an American cosmonaut safely travelled back with two Russians from the ISS and landed in Kazakhstan. 

Science has had to pay the price of Russia’s war with Ukraine since climate scientists are now scared of how to keep documenting heating in the Arctic without Russian help. Further, Europe’s space agency (ESA) has to grapple with how the planned Mars rover will spend freezing nights on the Red Planet, minus the Russian heating unit. 

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ESA director, Josef Aschbacher, said in an Associated Press interview, “Dependency on each other, of course, creates also stability and, to a certain extent, trust. And this is something that we will lose, and we have lost now, through the invasion of Russia in Ukraine.” Collaboration between scientists has become a hurdle due to the sanctions in place, and plugs being pulled on existing projects.