News of the ISS partnership's demise has been exaggerated.
Roscosmos Director General Dmitry Rogozin shakes hands with then-NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine at the Cosmonaut Hotel in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, on Oct. 10, 2018.Rogozin's statements need to be viewed through a particular lens: He is angry about the economic sanctions imposed on Russia due to its ongoingand wants them lifted. He has railed against the sanctions repeatedly over the past few months, on several occasions suggesting that their existence imperils the ISS partnership.
. And on April 2, he tweeted ,"I believe that the restoration of normal relations between partners in the International Space Station and other joint projects is possible only with the complete and unconditional lifting of illegal sanctions." These statements raise the prospect of Roscosmos leaving the ISS partnership but certainly don't promise that such a move is imminent. And it's tough to know how seriously to take any Rogozin threat, either explicit or implicit, because he's a blustery figure prone to making hyperbolic statements.
In April 2014, for example, when he was Russia's deputy prime minister, Rogozin suggested that the United States should use a trampoline to get its astronauts to the space station. This comment, a reference to NASA's total dependence at the time on Russian for crewed orbital flight, came shortly after sanctions were imposed on Russia for a previous invasion of Ukraine. During that invasion in February 2014, Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula, which it still holds today.