MOSCOW, March 23. /TASS/. The deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, believes it is a net positive that Russia and the United States continue to cooperate in crewed space flights.

"It's amazing, absolutely amazing, but this is a field of activity (crewed space flights - TASS) in which relations with our ‘friends’ have not been severed," Medvedev stated in an interview to Russian media and VKontakte online social media network.

He explained that space cooperation with the US was continuing by virtue of pragmatism: "They are pragmatic people, of course, <...> it is beneficial for them."

"It is a hard fact that crewed space exploration involving both our rockets, their rockets, and the [international space] station continues. It’s not without problems, but it goes on, and I think it's good," Medvedev said.

"What's the point of breaking ties? Space is certainly the future of humanity," he believes.

A recent example of continued interaction by Russia and the United States in space is the flight of Anna Kikina, who was the first Russian cosmonaut to go to the International Space Station (ISS) on the US spacecraft Crew Dragon as part of a cross-flight program between NASA and Roscosmos. Last October, Kikina, NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada, and Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata arrived on the ISS and on March 12 splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida. After the departure of Crew-5 from the ISS, Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev, Dmitry Petelin (TASS special correspondent on the ISS) and Andrey Fedyayev, NASA astronauts Frank Rubio, Stephen Bowen, and Warren Hoburg and UAE astronaut Sultan Al Neyadi continue to work on the orbital outpost.