Video clips showed the moment 3 Russian cosmonauts, dressed in yellow and blue uniforms representing the Ukrainian flag, arrived at the International Space Station on Friday, after the Soyuz spacecraft they were traveling in docked with the station.

The team stationed on the station, consisting of 4 Americans, two Russians and a German, received the Russian cosmonauts warmly, hugging and shaking hands.

The arrival of the Russian pioneers comes amid high tensions between the West and Moscow, over the Russian military attack on Ukraine, which has been going on for more than 3 weeks.

The Russian team arrived at the space station after a trip that lasted 3 hours and 10 minutes, since the Soyuz spacecraft took off from the Russian Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The Russian team will begin a scientific mission that is scheduled to last 6 and a half months, led by Oleg Artemyev, and the junior cosmonauts Denis Matveev and Sergey Korsakov are included.

The new cosmonauts will replace Russian cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anton Shkaplerov, and American astronaut Mark Vandy, who are scheduled to return to Earth on March 30, Reuters reported.

The arrival of the latest Russian space team came a day after the European Space Agency announced the suspension of a joint mission to send a probe to Mars with Russia due to the conflict in Ukraine.

Last week, the head of the Russian space agency “Roscosmos”, Dmitry Rogozin, announced that Western sanctions imposed on Russia could cause the fall of the International Space Station, and demanded that these measures be lifted.

Rogozin said that the sanctions will lead to disruption of the operation of the Russian spacecraft supplying the International Space Station, which will affect the Russian part of the station, which allows, in particular, to correct the orbit of the orbital structure.

He added, “This may cause the International Space Station, which weighs 500 tons, to descend on land or at sea.”

“The Russian part ensures correcting the orbit of the station (on average 11 times a year), including to avoid cutting space debris,” said Rogozin, who constantly posts messages of support for the Russian military in Ukraine on social networks.

The head of “Roscosmos” published a map of the world showing the likely location of the fall of the station, stressing that Russia is largely safe, explaining: “Residents of other countries, especially those led by Westerners, should think about the price of sanctions against Roscosmos,” describing those who imposed retaliatory measures as “” the crazy ones”.

And the US space agency (NASA) said on the first of March that it was working to find solutions to keep the station in orbit without Russian help.

Crews and supplies are transported to this sector by Soyuz vehicles and Progress cargo vehicles.

And Rogozin indicated that the vehicle needed to launch these mechanisms “has been subject to US sanctions since 2021 and sanctions imposed by the European Union and Canada in 2022.”

3 russian cosmonauts on the international space station showing their solidarity with ukraine
pic.twitter.com/Gtiym5sMcI

— ian bremmer (@ianbremmer) March 19, 2022