Can you not read? I clearly mentioned the seat-swap program, which is the program under which those swaps have occurred. No money is exchanged, the program had been started prior to the war in Ukraine, and it gives Russia no leverage (that is, it would not matter much if Russia refused to keep it going).

That is entirely different from actively paying Russia for a flight, where, for starters, there's the political problem of having to give Russia money and somehow avoiding politicians turning that into an issue (especially considering the election year). Then there's the problem that it'd give Russia leverage to demand a loosening of restrictions. Russia has already been complaining about the sanctions limiting their access to components for spacecraft.

NASA still gives Roscosmos money, in exchange for Roscosmos doing ISS-related stuff for NASA. NASA has a contract with Roscosmos for "joint spaceflight activities" which does not expire until the end of this year. I don't know if it can be extended past this year or not, but since the contract dates to 1993, I suspect they will continue to extend it year-by-year until the ISS program is terminated.

https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_NAS1510110_8000_-...

So far this year NASA has executed 7 contract modifications (from February through September), under which it has paid Roscosmos an additional US$2.6 million. While that's not a huge amount of money, it doesn't look like there is a hard prohibition on NASA paying Roscosmos for services.

I mean, you can probably see how paying for a rescue mission would be blatantly different from payments related to ongoing ISS operations...

Why are you still making up bullshit? NASA isn't cooperating with Russia because their hands are tied by prewar contracts. They're cooperating with Russia because it's a mutually beneficial arrangement which was extended in 2023 after Russia's war began.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/russia-us-agree-add...

August 25, 2023

> Aug 25 (Reuters) - Russian and U.S. space authorities have agreed an additional flight for an American astronaut on board Russia's Soyuz MS spacecraft, Interfax news agency said on Friday, in a rare sign of bilateral cooperation at a time of high tension over Ukraine.

You have the same internet I do, you should be able to find this information yourself. Stop being a dumbass, unsubscribe from your reddit or wherever it is that's influencing you to think you can know things by bullshitting instead of researching.