Russian astronauts, or cosmonauts, will stop using European -made robot arms at the International Space Station (ISS), because the European Space Agency (ESA) refuses to work with Russia in the MARS project, the Russian space agency head said Roscosmos on Tuesday .

Roscosmos and Esa have a cooperation project called exomars intended to find traces of life on the red planet. But ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher said on Tuesday that Europe would officially end the cooperation.

Aschbacher said in a tweet that further information would be released on July 20 at a media briefing.

“In turn, I instructed our ISS crew to stop using European robot arms,” ​​said Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin CEO in Telegram.

European robot arm (era) was installed on ISS in April, and is currently attached to the Russian section of the space station.

Rogozin said Esa “sabotted” cooperation and “thwarting the workforce of thousands of scientists and engineers” in Russia and Europe.

He also said Roscosmos would try his best to restore Mars’s landing for Exomars’s mission from Italy.