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European Space Agency Stops Cooperation with Russian Lunar Missions

European Space Agency Stops Cooperation with Russian Lunar Missions
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European Space Agency Stops Cooperation with Russian Lunar Missions

European Space Agency Stops Cooperation with Russian Lunar Missions

The European Space Agency on Wednesday ended cooperation with Russia on three missions to the Moon due to Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, following a previous decision to do the same for a Mars mission.

The ESA said it would "discontinue cooperative activities" on Luna-25, 26 and 27, a series of Russian lunar missions on which the European agency had aimed to test new equipment and technology, AFP said.

In late March, collaboration on ExoMars, a plan to land a rover on Mars to drill into the soil and search for signs of life, was suspended as well.

"As with ExoMars, the Russian aggression against Ukraine and the resulting sanctions put in place represent a fundamental change of circumstances and make it impossible for ESA to implement the planned lunar cooperation," the ESA said in a statement.

The ESA had planned to have a navigation camera called Pilot-D on the Luna-25 probe, whose launch is scheduled for this summer.

ESA Director-General Josef Aschbacher told a press briefing the camera was going to be dismantled and taken off the launch, and that Russia's space agency, Roscosmos, had already been informed.

The ESA is looking for other options and partners to test the technology that would have formed part of the Russian missions, it said, adding some had already been found.

An alternative mission for Pilot-D "is already being procured from a commercial service provider", the agency said.

Equipment including a lunar drill originally planned for Luna-27 will now be launched on a NASA-led mission instead.

A study on new options for the ExoMars components was being fast-tracked as well, the ESA said.

That mission had been supposed to launch in September.

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Ukraine Pushes for NATO Invite 30 Years after Failed Nuclear Deal

Russia's T-72 tank drives during military drills held at a firing range amid Russia-Ukraine conflict, in the southern Krasnodar region, Russia, December 2, 2024. (Reuters)
Russia's T-72 tank drives during military drills held at a firing range amid Russia-Ukraine conflict, in the southern Krasnodar region, Russia, December 2, 2024. (Reuters)
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Ukraine Pushes for NATO Invite 30 Years after Failed Nuclear Deal

Russia's T-72 tank drives during military drills held at a firing range amid Russia-Ukraine conflict, in the southern Krasnodar region, Russia, December 2, 2024. (Reuters)
Russia's T-72 tank drives during military drills held at a firing range amid Russia-Ukraine conflict, in the southern Krasnodar region, Russia, December 2, 2024. (Reuters)

Ukraine on Tuesday blasted an agreement struck 30 years ago under which it relinquished nuclear weapons in exchange for security assurances that never materialized, as it makes a concerted push for an invitation to join the NATO alliance.

Kyiv is desperately calling for robust security guarantees to protect it from renewed Russian aggression as US President-elect Donald Trump's return to the White House raises fears of a rapidly-struck settlement to the war that would leave it exposed.

Ukraine's foreign ministry pointed to the 1994 Budapest Memorandum which saw Kyiv give up the world's third largest nuclear arsenal in return for security assurances, including from Russia, after the 1991 Soviet breakup.

"Today, the Budapest Memorandum is a monument to short-sightedness in strategic security decision-making," the ministry wrote in a statement, marking this week's anniversary of the Dec. 5, 1994, agreement.

It said the agreement "should serve as a reminder to the current leaders of the Euro-Atlantic community that building a European security architecture at the expense of Ukraine's interests, rather than taking them into consideration is destined to failure".

Ukraine has denounced the memorandum since 2014, long before the 2022 invasion, when Russian troops seized and annexed Ukraine's Crimean peninsula before backing paramilitary proxies in the east.

The fighting in Ukraine's east, which killed thousands, was brought to an uneasy ceasefire followed by dozens of rounds of talks under what was known as the Minsk agreements.

Even after almost three years of all-out war, Kyiv has balked at the prospect of a return to similar negotiations that could see a temporary ceasefire but leave open the prospect of a new Russian invasion.

"Enough of the Budapest Memorandum. Enough of the Minsk Agreements. Twice is enough, we cannot fall into the same trap a third time. We simply have no right to do so," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said.

Kyiv wants NATO members to issue an invitation at a meeting of the alliance's foreign ministers that starts on Tuesday, as the invasion grinds toward its three-year mark and Russia makes battlefield gains.

The foreign ministry statement called on the United States and Britain, also signatories to the 1994 memorandum, as well as France and China, which it said also acceded to it, to support the provision of security guarantees to Ukraine.

"We are convinced that the only real guarantee of security for Ukraine, as well as a deterrent to further Russian aggression against Ukraine and other states, is Ukraine's full membership in NATO," it said.

Russia sees the idea of Ukraine's integration into NATO as anathema and says it is an unacceptable security threat.