At a meeting with reporters in Simferopol, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said that, by imposing sanctions against Russia, the Americans are substituting their astronauts for the ISS, since any restrictions will automatically affect US residents.
“By their sanctions, they, frankly, already got it, without realizing that the sanctions would hit them themselves,” the Interfax Russian official reports.
In particular, Rogozin mentioned rocket science, it is this area, according to him, that the Americans want to “clean up”. “If they want to strike at Russian rocket science, they automatically“ boomerang ”substitute their astronauts on the International Space Station,” Dmitry Rogozin believes.
He also emphasized that in the space sector, sanctions do not strike at Russia, but at the European Space Agency, which produces satellites with Russian-made components. “And now nobody needs these satellites,” the Russian Deputy Prime Minister concluded.
Recall that earlier today, US Secretary of State John Kerry said that in the near future the United States could move on to the fourth phase of sanctions against Russia. This implies the introduction of restrictions on working with entire sectors of the economy, such as energy, financial and defense.