Report: Russia Threatens to Strand US Astronaut in Space

Russia is threatening to leave an American astronaut stranded in space as tensions mount between the U.S. and Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine, reports Fox News.

Astronaut Mark Vande Hei, who holds the ongoing record for longest space flight, is scheduled to end his 355-day mission in three weeks by landing in Kazakhstan with two Russian cosmonauts on a Russian spacecraft.

But Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Russia's Space Agency and a close ally to Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a video posted to social media in late February, threatened to leave Vande Hei behind in space and detach Russia's segment of the space station altogether.

The video, posted by Russia's space agency and shared by a Russian state news agency, showed Russian cosmonauts waving goodbye to Vande Hei in space and then detaching the Russian segment of the International Space Station from the U.S. segment. Another video showed crews covering the American flag on a Russian rocket.

The Russian news agency shared the video clip on the social media platform Telegram with the caption: "The Roscosmos television studio jokingly demonstrated the possibility of Russia withdrawing from the ISS project—the undocking of the Russian segment of the station, without which the American part of the project cannot exist."

Former National Aeronautics and Space Administration astronaut Scott Kelly, who spent nearly a year in 2015 and 2016 aboard the ISS and has logged more than 520 days in space, traded barbs with Rogozin on Twitter over the posts.

"It kind of enraged me that the country that we had been in this international partnership for 20 years would take the time to make a video to threaten to leave behind one of the crew members they are responsible for," Kelly told The Wall Street Journal Thursday. "They agreed to be responsible for his safety, getting him to the space station and getting him home. For me, that kind of just crossed the line."

NASA in late February said sanctions against Russia by the Biden administration would not imperil ISS operations, and that "no changes are planned" and that the agency will continue to support "ongoing in orbit and ground station operations."

• International Space Station Faces Challenges Following Ukraine Invasion
• Former NASA Astronaut Lashes Out at Russian Space Program Head