INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
A record-breaking United States astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts returned to Earth from the International Space Station Wednesday, with
tensions between Moscow and the West soaring over Ukraine."The crew of Roscosmos cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov, as well as
NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei, has returned to Earth," Russia's space agency Roscosmos said in a statement.Footage broadcast from the
landing site in Kazakhstan showed the Soyuz descent module touching down at the expected time of 11:28 GMT in bright conditions before the
crew emerged from the vehicle that had blown onto its side
clocking 355 days aboard the International Space Station.Cosmonaut Dubrov, with whom he blasted off from Baikonur in April last year, now
holds the record for the longest mission by a Russian at the ISS, although four cosmonauts clocked longer stints at the now-defunct Mir
mission.United States , Russia relations in tattersRelations between Moscow and Washington have been in tatters since the Kremlin launched
cooperation between Russia and the West untouched by the fallout of Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014, but here, too, tensions are
Ukraine, suggested that Western sanctions targeting Russia in response had put the orbital lab in jeopardy
Russian propulsion system to maintain its orbit, some 400 kilometers above sea level, with the United States segment responsible for
goals in space.But at least two retired heavyweights of the space world, United States astronaut Scott Kelly and Russia's Gennady Padalka
sons have been killed in this unjust war," Kelly said in a tweet addressed to Russia's former president and current deputy security
and Ukraine will always be next to each other
meant that Ukrainians would view current and future Russian generations with "hatred."Padalka, 63, holds the world record for cumulative
agency's administrator Bill Nelson noting in a statement that his mission was "paving the way for future human explorers on the Moon,
