NASA rebukes Russia for using ISS as Ukraine propaganda

On Monday, the Russian room company posted photographs of its three cosmonauts posing with the flag of the Luhansk People’s Republic and the Donetsk People’s Republic and claimed the seize of the region was “a liberation working day to celebrate each on Earth and in area.”

At any time given that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, NASA has absent to great lengths to check out to preserve the partnership on the room station, which has endured for far more than 20 several years. The place company has highlighted the comity amongst the astronauts and cosmonauts residing aspect-by-facet in orbit and pledged the partnership would carry on to endure.

Previously this calendar year, Kathy Lueders, NASA’s affiliate administrator for room functions, reported that despite the war and tensions on the ground, NASA and its Russian counterparts “are nevertheless conversing jointly. We’re nevertheless performing schooling together. We’re even now working collectively. Definitely, we understand the world-wide scenario and wherever it is, but as a joint crew, these teams are running jointly.”

She added that, “obviously we have to have to go on to observe the situation. … We’ve operated in these varieties of predicaments right before and the two sides constantly operated really skillfully and realize the significance of this fantastic mission and continuing to have peaceful relations in between the two countries in area.”

Past year, following Russia blew up a lifeless satellite that scattered particles and threatened the station, Invoice Nelson, the NASA administrator, strongly condemned the Russian military, calling it “reckless and hazardous.”

Nevertheless, he experienced absent out of his way to highlight the space station as a tranquil haven, manage that the war has not thrown the partnership into problem.

“The cosmonauts and the astronauts are receiving along as standard,” he advised CNBC in March.