MOSCOW, June 13. /TASS/. Russia has no influence on making the list of candidates for cosmonauts from Belarus, General Director of the Roscosmos space agency Dmitry Rogozin told TASS. The choice of candidates from Belarus entirely depends on the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, he said.
On April 12, Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed Roscosmos to organize a flight of representatives of Belarus into space on a Russian spacecraft. Then Rogozin said that the Belarusian side had to select at least two dozen candidates for space flight by June 15.
"I don’t know yet what candidates are, and I don’t want to know it to avoid our influence on the formation of the list. It entirely depends on the choice of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus," Rogozin said.
As expected, the list of candidates will be submitted to Roscosmos on June 15, the head of Roscosmos recalled. At the same time, the deadlines for sending a Belarusian cosmonaut into orbit have not changed, this should happen in 2023.