INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts returned to Earth from the International Space Station Wednesday, with tensions between Moscow and the
West soaring over Ukraine."The crew of Roscosmos cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov, as well as NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei, has
returned to Earth," Russia's space agency Roscosmos said in a statement.Footage broadcast from the landing site in Kazakhstan showed the
Soyuz descent module touching down at the expected time of 11:28 GMT in bright conditions before the crew emerged from the vehicle that had
clocking 355 days aboard the International Space Station.Cosmonaut Dubrov, with whom he blasted off from Baikonur in April last year, now
holds the record for the longest mission by a Russian at the ISS, although four cosmonauts clocked longer stints at the now-defunct Mir
mission.U.S., Russia relations in tattersRelations between Moscow and Washington have been in tatters since the Kremlin launched an invasion
between Russia and the West untouched by the fallout of Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014, but here, too, tensions are growing
suggested that Western sanctions targeting Russia in response had put the orbital lab in jeopardy
depends on a Russian propulsion system to maintain its orbit, some 400 kilometers above sea level, with the U.S
humanity's goals in space.But at least two retired heavyweights of the space world, U.S
record before it was broken by Vande Hei earlier this month, said he had returned a medal awarded to him by the Russian government in
authorities, regimes, ideologies come and go, but Russia and Ukraine will always be next to each other
meant that Ukrainians would view current and future Russian generations with "hatred."Padalka, 63, holds the world record for cumulative
agency's administrator Bill Nelson noting in a statement that his mission was "paving the way for future human explorers on the Moon, Mars,
