APOGEE STAFF | Photos by The Associated Press
Russia’s space program experienced rapid deterioration and uncertainty after the 2022 Ukraine invasion. The seeds of that decline, however, were sown years earlier when Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. The nation that launched Sputnik, ushering in the Space Age, had suddenly been thrust into an environment that made its space program unsustainable: sanctions, an embargo on advanced industrial equipment, workforce shortages, limited financial resources, protracted economic inefficiencies in Russia’s space industry and the cancellation of space cooperation with Western partners, except for operations on the International Space Station (ISS).
As told through numbers, here is a look at the impact of those and other factors that continue to weaken Russia’s space program.
Source: “Russia’s Space Program After 2024” by Dr. Pavel Luzin, Foreign Policy Research Institute, July 2024.