Yuri Borisov, who was appointed earlier this month to head the state-controlled space agency Roscosmos, said during a meeting with Vladimir Putin that Russia would fulfill its obligations to its ISS partners before withdrawing from the project. “The decision to abandon the station after 2024 has been made,” Borisov said. His statement confirmed earlier statements by Russian space officials about Moscow’s intention to abandon the station after 2024. Subscribe to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every morning at 7am. BST. It comes amid rising tensions between Russia and the West over the invasion of Ukraine. Despite the rift, Nasa and Roscosmos struck a deal earlier this month for astronauts to continue piloting Russian rockets and for Russian cosmonauts to catch lifts to the ISS with private US rocket company SpaceX from the fall. The agreement ensures that the ISS will always have at least one American and one Russian on board to keep both sides of the outpost running smoothly, according to NASA and Russian officials. The exchange had long been in the works and had been finalized despite friction over the Ukraine war in a sign of continued Russian-US cooperation in space. A senior NASA official told Reuters on Tuesday that Russia has not communicated its intention to withdraw from the ISS.
