In the course of his lengthy interview with NBC journalist Keir Simmons, aired June 14, two days before the Putin-Biden summit, Russian President Vladimir Putin identified for the American people a couple of areas in which both countries could cooperate, and explained how. The video interview had some 750,000 views as of the afternoon of the summit.
Putin considers space one such major area of cooperation. He flatly rejected Simmons’ suggestion that Russia is preparing to stop cooperation with NASA on space, in favor of work with China, and dismissed Simmons’ reference to an earlier statement by Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Russia’s space program Roscosmos, that Russia would cut off cooperation with NASA if sanctions against Roscosmos companies were not lifted.
“We are prepared to work with the U.S. in space. I think recently the head of NASA said that he could not imagine development of space programs without its partnership with Russia. We welcome this statement and we value it…. The cooperation between our two countries in space is a great example of a situation where, despite any kind of problems in political relationships in recent years, it’s an area where we have been able to maintain and preserve the partnership and both parties cherish it,” Putin responded.
