Russian space agency tightens regulations for foreign travel following high-ranked employee's permanent ‘business trip’ to Europe

Roscosmos director Dmitry Rogozin has released an order enacting stricter regulations for employees of the state-owned corporation who travel abroad, RIA Novosti reported.

The new rules apply most directly to high-ranked Roscosmos officials who have access to confidential information. Sources in Russia’s aerospace industry said the regulations were tied to a Roscosmos employee’s escape to Europe in mid-May; the agency’s press service declined to comment.

Yury Yaskin, the CEO of Roscosmos’s Space Instrumentation Research Institute, left Russia for Europe in April under the guise of a business trip and then submitted his resignation. Kommersant reported that Yaskin’s escape allowed him to avoid a potential embezzlement case at the institute he led.