No Canadian visas for Russian, Chinese space reps : Report

A delegation of the Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) and a number of specialized Russian agencies failed to attend the 65th International Astronautical Congress in Toronto as many of their members had been denied Canadian visas, a source in the Russian space industry told Interfax-AVN on Tuesday.

A Roscosmos spokesperson said: “Failure to obtain visas for Russians is clearly politically motivated and therefore it was decided not to send the delegation of the Russian Space Agency to Toronto.”

Among those unable to attend were cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev, who served as the first deputy director of manned space programs at the Central Research Institute of Mechanical Engineering, and is the CEO of the Alexander Milkovsky Institute.

The Roscosmos spokesperson also said that the delegation of Russian institutions and agencies paid in advance for their representatives to attend the Congress. He added that the Russian foreign ministry had been informed about the incident and were “unlikely to leave it unanswered.”

Some 3,000 of the world’s top scientists, researchers, engineers and astronauts are expected to attend the Congress, which runs until Friday with the theme ‘Our World Needs Space’.

The American space agency (NASA) announced it was suspending activities with Roscosmos in April, as the crisis in Ukraine – an ongoing source of tension between Russia and the West – was worsening.

In July, several delegates were refused visas by Britain for the Farnborough 2014 air show – a move described by the head of the Air Force services department at Russia’s Rosoboronexport company as a sign of weakness.

“The fact that most of the members of the Russian delegation have failed to get visas is an unhealthy sign of dishonest competition, a sign of weakness, if you like. A strong and self-assured player won’t resort to such things,” Sergei Kornev told reporters.

Agencies/Canadajournal