Dmitry Rogozin has been removed as head of Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos.
President Vladimir Putin appointed Yuri Borisov, who previously served as Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister, as new Director General of Roscosmos.
The Trade Minister, Denis Manturov, replaces Borisov as Deputy Prime Minister.
The orders took effect from 15 July, 2022.
Dmitry Rogozin has been controversial.
He is best known outside Russia for being critical of Western sanctions imposed on his country over the war in Ukraine.
He threatened quitting the International Space Station and ending all co-operation with NASA unless the sanctions are lifted.
Recently, he warned Elon Musk, owner of SpaceX, accusing him of taking sides in the war.
There was also the controversy over the use of the ISS for propaganda which NASA complained about.
On July 4, 2022 Roscosmos posted two pictures of cosmonauts Sergey Korsakov, Oleg Artemyev and Denis Matveev in the ISS.
The three cosmonauts in the pictures were posing with the flags of the two seized (liberated) regions of Luhansk People’s Republic and Donehtsk People’s Republic.
Russia seized, or as the Kremlin says liberated, the two regions in the ongoing war with Ukraine.
In the post, Rogozin’s Roscosmos congratulated the Russian armed forced for liberating Luhansk and Donetsk.
ESA earlier, terminated co-operation with Roscosmos on two planned missions.
US and European space agencies, NASA and ESA, will no doubt, welcome Rogozin’s removal.
Dmitry Rogozin was appointed head of Roscosmos in 2018.
