Last week, the new head of Roscosmos, Yuriy Borisov, announced that the Russian space agency will stop cooperating with the International Space Station in two years. Wired writes about what is behind this high-profile announcement, and how Russiaʼs withdrawal from the ISS will affect space cooperation. Borisovʼs predecessor, the scandalous Dmitry Rogozin, also talked about leaving the project as a response to Western sanctions caused by Russiaʼs full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Presumably, with his words, Borisov wants to please "the only person whose opinion matters", i.e. Putin. Perhaps these words are just empty talk, because leaving the ISS prematurely would mean the abandonment of the human spaceflight program for Roscosmos. Casey Dreyer, an expert on space politics, believes that Putin will not go for it, because he considers the program symbolic. In general, the prospects of the Russian space industry look bleak, the publication writes. The Russian Federation lost access to technology imports, contracts for launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, and the opportunity to cooperate with the United States. NASA astronauts, who until recently had to use the Russian Soyuz, now fly to the ISS on SpaceX and Boeing ships. The ISS is, in fact, the only project left by Roscosmos. According to Borisov, by 2028, the Russians plan to create and launch a replacement for the ISS ― the Russian Orbital Service Station. The experts contacted by the publication consider this term unrealistic, especially given the problems with financing and corruption. For 20 years, despite everything, the ISS served as a bridge of understanding between countries and cultures, a platform for joint scientific experiments and discoveries. It seems that the Russian Federation is ready to put an end to this and sow a geopolitical crisis in the space industry as well.
Former US Ambassador to the UN Zelmay Khalizad writes in The Wall Street Journal about the key steps the West needs to take to help Ukraine gain the upper hand in possible future peace talks. At the moment, the Russian Federation pretends to want negotiations, and Kyiv allegedly prevents them from being held at the behest of the US. If we look at the actions of the Kremlin, it becomes obvious that this thesis is a lie: Moscow is preparing to annex the occupied territories, attacks cities outside the Donbass and seeks to eradicate Ukrainian identity. For the world order, including stability in Europe and relations with China, it is critically important to settle the war politically, Khalizad believes. In his opinion, in order to create the preconditions for negotiations, the West should: first, prevent the Russian Federation from annexing the occupied territories, in particular by providing Ukraine with weapons that can hit targets at long distances, so that Ukraine can threaten "disputed territories" and even the territory of the Russian Federation. Secondly, the author believes, America should provide timely support to Ukraine, which will not only help increase the success of offensive operations, but also increase morale. Third, the US needs to encourage other allies to support Ukraine ― for example, by involving Ukrainian spokespeople in negotiations with African countries. Russia will go to negotiations only when it sees significant losses and realistically assesses the risk of failure, concludes Khalizad.
The New York Times writes about how a full-scale war pushed Ukraine in the direction of legalizing same-sex marriage. Olexander Shadskykh, a 23-year-old combat medic, with whom the publication spoke, says that in addition to fear for his life, he is afraid that his partner will not even be able to come to his funeral, because same-sex couples are not recognized by law in Ukraine. In times of war, this inequality has even more serious consequences, as a partner does not have the right to visit his partner in the hospital, share property rights, or receive custody of the child of the deceased partner. The publication mentions a petition calling to allow same-sex marriages on the Presidentʼs website, which received about 30,000 votes. Although the Presidentʼs office did not comment on the petition to the NYT, an official response was published on the petition website, in which Zelensky ordered the government to develop a mechanism for civil partnerships for same-sex couples, an alternative to marriage that does not require changes to the Constitution of Ukraine. The publication writes that now it is especially important for Ukraine to make a commitment to ensure equality for LGBT people, because this will not only help the process of European integration of Ukraine, but will also demonstrate another difference between Ukraine and the Russian Federation, where LGBT representatives constantly face institutional discrimination. At the same time, these efforts have opponents, the NYT writes, including conservative members of the ruling party such as Georgiy Mazurashu. Among other things, he is a co-author of the bill on the banning of "propaganda of homosexuality" and assures that these problems are "out of time”. Since hundreds, maybe even thousands of LGBT people risk their lives at the front every day, and their partners have no rights, the problem is now more urgent than ever, the publication writes.