Russia Space Agency Seeking to Extend ISS Participation Past 2024

Space experts said Russia's departure from the International Space Station would seriously affect the country's space sector Handout NASA/AFP/File
Space experts said Russia's departure from the International Space Station would seriously affect the country's space sector Handout NASA/AFP/File
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Russia Space Agency Seeking to Extend ISS Participation Past 2024

Space experts said Russia's departure from the International Space Station would seriously affect the country's space sector Handout NASA/AFP/File
Space experts said Russia's departure from the International Space Station would seriously affect the country's space sector Handout NASA/AFP/File

Russia's space agency is discussing with Moscow a continuation of its participation in the International Space Station past 2024, a Roscosmos official said Monday.

Sergei Krikalev, head of Russia's human space flight programs, told reporters that Roscosmos had started "to discuss extending our participation in ISS program with our government and hope to have permission to continue next year."

With ties between Russia and the West rupturing over the war in Ukraine, Roscosmos chief Yuri Borissov had announced over the summer that Russia would leave the ISS "after 2024", and would seek to build its own space station.

He has not set a firm date for that plan, said AFP.

Krikalev admitted that building a new station would not happen quickly, "so probably we will keep flying until we will have any new infrastructure."

His remarks, in English, came during a NASA press conference ahead of Wednesday's launch of a SpaceX rocket that will carry a Russian cosmonaut, two American astronauts and a Japanese astronaut to the ISS.

ISS partner countries -- the United States, Russia, Europe, Canada and Japan -- are for the moment only committed to operate the orbiting laboratory until 2024, though US officials have already stated they want to continue until 2030.

The space sector is one of the few areas of cooperation that have survived the extreme tensions between the United States and Russia since Moscow invaded Ukraine in February.



Russia Trying to Gain Foothold in Ukraine’s Sumy Region, Border Guard Says 

Firefighters work at the site of a warehouse hit by a Russian drone strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Sumy, Ukraine March 6, 2025. (Press service of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in Sumy region/Handout via Reuters) 
Firefighters work at the site of a warehouse hit by a Russian drone strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Sumy, Ukraine March 6, 2025. (Press service of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in Sumy region/Handout via Reuters) 
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Russia Trying to Gain Foothold in Ukraine’s Sumy Region, Border Guard Says 

Firefighters work at the site of a warehouse hit by a Russian drone strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Sumy, Ukraine March 6, 2025. (Press service of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in Sumy region/Handout via Reuters) 
Firefighters work at the site of a warehouse hit by a Russian drone strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Sumy, Ukraine March 6, 2025. (Press service of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in Sumy region/Handout via Reuters) 

Russian forces are attempting to create an active fighting zone in Ukraine's northeastern region of Sumy, across the border from Russia's Kursk region, Ukraine's border guard spokesman said on Monday.

Russian forces have stepped up their pressure on Ukrainian troops holding parts of Kursk seven months after a cross-border assault that Kyiv launched in part to gain a bargaining chip in possible peace negotiations.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy travels to Saudi Arabia on Monday ahead of talks between Ukrainian and US officials on ending the war with Russia.

"We have recorded that in the direction of Novenke, the enemy is still trying to create a zone of active hostilities on the territory of Ukraine, trying to gain a foothold there," border guard spokesman Andriy Demchenko told Ukrainian national television.

"These are small assault groups, but such groups of several people are trying to enter our territory to accumulate and to later move deeper into the territory of Ukraine, including, most likely, to cut off logistical routes."

Border guards were repelling the attacks using artillery and other means to prevent accumulation of forces and any expansion of the zone of active hostilities, Demchenko said.

Ukraine's general staff said on Monday that Ukrainian forces had repelled 27 attacks Russian forces in the Kursk region over the past day.

The Russian defense ministry said on Sunday that its forces had recaptured three more settlements in the Kursk region, amid reports from experts and military bloggers that Ukrainian forces faced the threat of encirclement and supply line challenges.