OREANDA-NEWS Maxim Ovchinnikov, the first deputy general director of the state corporation for economics and finance, said that one of the counterparties of Roscosmos in 2020 refused the contract for the launch of the satellite due to US sanctions. According to him, last year several foreign companies also refused to supply components.

Ovchinnikov said that last year several foreign companies also refused to supply the components necessary for Roscosmos to fulfill the state defense order, while such elements were not manufactured in Russia.

“But a year before that, we knew that there were risks, and we started working with our other, not part of the state corporation, but a Russian enterprise for the production of this product, and in a year it will simply appear. In this regard, the country, having refused supplies, simply created a competitor for itself, "- said the deputy head of Roscosmos.

In December 2020, the US Department of Commerce imposed restrictions on Russian companies for cooperation with the military. For the first time, the Progress Rocket and Space Center and the head scientific institute of the state corporation TsNIIMash were included in the sanctions list. Even before the imposition of sanctions, the head of Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin informed the head of NASA that they endanger the ISS program.