Russia to quit International Space Station after 2024

Russia has decided to quit the International Space Station after 2024. Moscow's space agency Roscosmos's newly-appointed chief  Yury Borisov announced the decision on Tuesday. President Vladimir Putin was also briefed about it. The announcement comes as tensions rage between the Kremlin and West over Moscow's military operation in Ukraine and several rounds of unprecedented sanctions against Russia. Russia and the United States have worked side by side on the space station which has been in orbit since 1998. Yury Borisov also told Putin that in spite of this decision, space programme will continue to get top priority and Russia will start putting together a Russian orbital station before 2024. Sending the first man into space in 1961 and launching the first satellite four years earlier are among key accomplishments of the Soviet space programme and remain a major source of national pride in Russia.

The two former Cold War adversaries signed a crew exchange agreement less than two weeks ago allowing U.S. astronauts and Russian cosmonauts to share flights on each other's spacecraft to and from International Space Station (ISS) in the future. The U.S. space agency has said it plans to keep the ISS in operation through 2030. U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price also said Russia's announcement was unexpected, calling it an "unfortunate development."