Russia is to deny the US use of the International Space Station beyond 2020 and will also bar its rocket engines from launching US military satellites as it hits back at American sanctions imposed over the Ukraine crisis.
The twin moves against the space and satellite programmes represent one high-tech niche in which Moscow believes it has leverage over the US.
“The Russian segment of the ISS can exist independently from the US one but the US segment cannot exist independently from the Russian one,” said Dmitry Rogozin, deputy prime minister, pointing to the fact that the US can no longer send astronauts to the station on its own. The US space shuttle fleet retired in 2011 as a result of Nasa funding cuts.