Ukrainian War Developments

lube said:

War crime o'clock it is.
The Chechens I believe are also going after their jihadi opponents that fled and joined up with Ukraine. Unfinished business from the war.

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FriedButter said:

Are there private western mercs in Ukraine?

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International Space Station’s US and Russian astronauts will continue as normal despite outbreak of war, Nasa says​

The International Space Station will continue as normal even amid the war in Ukraine, Nasa has said.

The space agency has confirmed that collaborative operations between it and the Russian space agency will still go on, despite the rapidly escalating tensions between their two countries.

“The International Space Station team is continuing to safely conduct research operations in low-Earth orbit,” a spokesperson said.

“Ongoing station operations continue including work to fly crew to the orbital outpost and to return them safely to Earth.”

That will include the return of Nasa astronaut Mark Vande Hei, who is set to come back to Earth on 30 March, using a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

The ISS currently hosts six people in addition to Vande Hei: ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer, Nasa astronauts Raja Chari, Thomas Marshburn, and Kayla Barron, and two Russian Cosmonauts, Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov.

If the Soyuz return flight takes place as planned, Cosmonauts Shkaplerov and Dubrov will return to Earth with Mr Vande Hei.

Upon returning home, Mr Vande Hei will set a new American record with 355 consecutive days in space. He was originally supposed to return in October, but his mission was extended in order to accomodate a Russian filmmaker and actress shooting a movie on the space station.

Should something change due to the war in Ukraine and delay Mr Vande Hei’s return, it will not be the first time Russian politics have kept someone aloft longer than anticipated. In May 1991, Soviet Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev boarded the Mir Space Station, and didn’t come home until March 1992, his return delayed by the fall of the Soviet Government in December 1991.

Krikalev would later fly aboard Nasa’s space shuttle and the ISS, an example of the bilateral cooperation Nasa asserts will keep the space station, and other joint US-Russia space activities functioning despite the growing conflict in Ukraine.

“Nasa and its international partners have maintained a continuous and productive human presence aboard the International Space Station for more than 21 years,” a spokesperson said.

Cooperation will also continue on the ground, they noted, with three Russian Cosmonauts currently training at Nasa’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Two Nasa astronauts completed training in Russia in February, the spokesperson said.

Nasa and the Russian Space Agency are not the only entities at play however, and it’s not yet clear if the conflict in and over Ukraine — and subsequent US and European sanctions — will affect commercial space launches and companies depending on launch services through Russia’s Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan.

Satellite constellation company OneWeb, of which the UK government is a part owner, is scheduled to launch satellites from Kazakhstan in early March. But a UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy spokesperson referred The Independent to OneWeb for comment, and OneWeb did not respond to requests for information.

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Russia's space agency warns US sanctions could 'destroy' cooperation on the International Space Station​

(CNN) --- The head of Russia's space agency says new US sanctions have the potential "to destroy our cooperation" on the International Space Station. There are currently four NASA astronauts, two Russian cosmonauts and one European astronaut living and working on board the orbiting outpost.

After President Joe Biden announced new sanctions Thursday that "will degrade their (Russia's) aerospace industry, including their space program," Roscosmos Director General Dmitry Rogozin said on Twitter that the station's orbit and location in space are controlled by Russian engines.

"If you block cooperation with us, who will save the International Space Station (ISS) from an uncontrolled deorbit and fall into the United States or...Europe?" Rogozin said. "There is also the possibility of a 500-ton structure falling on India and China. Do you want to threaten them with such a prospect? The ISS does not fly over Russia, therefore all the risks are yours. Are you ready for them?"

A NASA spokesperson told CNN that it "continues working with all our international partners, including the State Space Corporation Roscosmos, for the ongoing safe operations of the International Space Station."

"The new export control measures will continue to allow U.S.-Russia civil space cooperation. No changes are planned to the agency's support for ongoing in orbit and ground station operations. The new export control measures will continue to allow U.S.-Russia civil space cooperation," the spokesperson continued.

The ISS, which is a collaboration among the US, Russia, Japan, Canada and the European Space Agency, is divided into two sections -- the Russian Orbital Segment and the US Orbital Segment.

"The Russian segment can't function without the electricity on the American side, and the American side can't function without the propulsion systems that are on the Russian side," former NASA astronaut Garrett Reisman told CNN. "So you can't do an amicable divorce. You can't do a conscious uncoupling."

NASA has not responded directly to Rogozin's remarks, but it notes that the US space agency "continues working with Roscosmos and our other international partners in Canada, Europe, and Japan to maintain safe and continuous ISS operations."

But British Prime Minister Boris Johnson explicitly questioned the future of the International Space Station while speaking on the floor of the House of Commons on Thursday.

"I've been broadly in favor of continuing artistic and scientific collaboration," Johnson said. "But in the current circumstances, it's hard to see how even those can continue as normal."

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Helius said:

Meanwhile, all is quiet on the Final Front(ier) -

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Suetham said:

Russian graduates in New Kakhovka.
View attachment 83504

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cn_habs said:

Out of curiosity, what's the historical context there?

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Suetham said:

Russian graduates in New Kakhovka.
View attachment 83504

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