What’s Behind Russia’s Departure from the International Space Station

Sure. It’s easy to simply pin Russia’s announcement that it is quitting the International Space Station as a natural result of President Vladamir Putin’s unprovoked war in Ukraine. Yet, Russia’s reduced space industrial base, Putin’s ambitions, and a series of sackings and demotions illustrate a more complicated political and security picture in the space domain. To read the tea leaves, Laura Winter speaks with the head of the Rand Corporation’s Space Enterprise Initiative, retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Bruce McClintock, a former U.S. Defense Attaché to Russia, who was also a special assistant to the commander of Air Force Space Command; Jan Osburg, a RAND Corporation senior aerospace engineer, with experience in designing inhabited space systems; and Christopher Stone who is a senior fellow for space studies at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, and the author of “Reversing the Tao: A Framework for Credible Space Deterrence”.