Steve Gorman and Olzhas Auyezov

ALMATY (Reuters). Despite the growing animosity between Moscow, Washington and Moscow over the conflict at Ukraine, a U.S. astronaut and Russian cosmonaut landed in Kazakhstan today.

NASA’s Mark Vande Hei, Russians Anton Shkaplerov, and Pyotr dubrov were on board. They were closely watching to assess whether the escalating conflict had reached a point of long-term cooperation in space between their former Cold War foes.

Roscosmos Russia broadcast the landing footage from Kazakh Steppe. They also stated that they had sent a group medical and technical experts to aid the astronauts.

Vande Hei (55) is completing his second ISS trip. He will set a U.S. space endurance record of 355 days consecutively in orbit. This surpasses the previous record of 340 day by Scott Kelly, NASA.

Valeri Polyakov from Russia, who spent 14 months in the Mir space station and then returned to Earth in 1995 with a record breaking time in space, is now the all-time spaceflight record.

NASA stated that Dubrov is 40 years old and will now complete his first spaceflight. He was the one who shared 5,680 Earth orbits with Vande Hei in April. He also traveled over 150 million miles through space, NASA reported.

Shkaplerov (50), is about to end his fourth mission as the ISS Commander. He has logged 708 days total in space and far exceed Vande Hei’s 523-day record, NASA reports. Shkaplerov’s latest mission to the space station was initiated last October.

SPACE RELATED TESTED

U.S. economic sanction against Russian President Vladimir Putin were announced by Joe Biden on Feb. 24. Biden required high-tech export restrictions to Russia, which he claimed would “degrade” their aerospace industry and its space program.

Dmitry Rogozin was then the director-general Roscosmos. He posted a string of tweets (NYSE:) suggesting that U.S. sanctions could cause the “disintegration” of ISS teamwork which would lead to the space station’s fall from orbit.

The Russian state-run news agency RIA Novosti published a video spoof showing cosmonauts saying farewell before Russia’s ISS Module detached from space station. It flew away with Vande Hei to the cheers of mission control and left the rest of station in lower orbit.

The video, which RIA Novosti called “comic,” is set to Lev Leshchenko’s Russian love song “Goodbye”

Rogozin also announced that Russia will stop providing or servicing Russian-made rocket engine engines for two U.S. NASA suppliers. This suggested that U.S. astronauts might use “broomsticks” to reach orbit.

NASA has stated that the U.S. and Russian ISS personnel were aware of Earth’s events but work professionally together.

On March 18, three cosmonauts flew to orbit and joined Vande Hei, a German astronaut with the European Space Agency as the replacement crew.

Russia’s Space Agency later denied Western media claims that Russian cosmonauts arrived in Ukraine wearing yellow flight suits and blue trim. This is to support Ukraine. They were welcomed with warm hugs, handshakes, and smiles.

Roscosmos’s Telegram channel press service stated that “Sometimes Yellow is Just Yellow”.