Russia: Vladimir Popovkin, Chief of Russian space agency Roscosmos, imposed a formal ban on managers and staff employed by its rocket-making subsidiaries taking holidays abroad, a Russian daily reported. The report explained that employees’ foreign travel passports will be kept by their company and only given out after a number of bureaucratic formalities are fulfilled.
The Soviet-style edict applies to workers who are judged to have knowledge of particularly important or secret information connected to Russia’s rocket industry. It applies not only to subsidiaries of Roscosmos but also companies with which it has concluded contracts for work deemed to be of a sensitive nature.
The only exception, it said, is if an employee can prove that they are in need of medical treatment abroad that is unavailable in Russia.
“This is an official document and it is part of other official rules about questions of ensuring security,” the head of public relations at Roscosmos Alexei Kuznetsov stated.
Source: www.space-travel.com
