Russian invasion of Ukraine and resulting US sanctions threaten the future of the International Space Station

The International Space Station is run collectively by the U.S., Russia, the European Space Agency, Japan and Canada. NASA Marshall Spaceflight Center/Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA

New U.S. sanctions on Russia will encompass Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, according to a speech U.S. President Joe Biden gave on Feb. 24, 2022.

In response to these sanctions, the head of Roscosmos on the same day posted a tweet saying, among other things, “If you block cooperation with us, who will save the ISS from an uncontrolled deorbit and fall into the United States or Europe?”