Putin awards Order of Gagarin to Vasilevskaya, Novitsky

MOSCOW, 12 April (BelTA) – Russian President Vladimir Putin has awarded the Order of Gagarin to the first cosmonaut of sovereign Belarus Marina Vasilevskaya and Russian cosmonauts Oleg Novitsky and Sergei Prokopyev. The corresponding documents were published on Russia's official portal of legal information, BelTA has learned.

The award was bestowed “for great services to manned cosmonautics and for the courage shown during the long-term space flight to the International Space Station”.