There seems to be some confusion in the comments. The cosmonaut didn't spend 878 days in space continuously but rather over 5 separate missions starting from 2008.<p>And he will reach 1110 days once he returns from the current mission in September.
Important note:<p>878 days <i>in total</i>, across all his expeditions. Not continuous.<p>The longest continuous stay of 473 days was by Valeri Polyakov on board the Mir station in 1994-95.
Here is an interesting and relevant context: there is a huge amount of evidence that Roscosmos is taking an active part in the war effort. There is a great source about it from Eric Berger of Ars Technica: <a href="https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/06/it-appears-that-roscosmos-really-is-recruiting-soldiers-for-the-ukraine-war/" rel="nofollow">https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/06/it-appears-that-roscos...</a><p>Take that into account when reading news made from state press-releases like the one in the post.<p>P.S.: For the full context, the Roscosmos ex-boss also has had his own private military company for a while.
I wish they would go into more detail regarding the health effects. Eyesight, bone density, cancher risks, etc. I think it helps to be older though, slow cell divide and regeneration, slow down even "aggressive cancers"
A very small nitpick: "cosmonaut" implies a Russian astronaut [1].<p>Calling someone a "Russian cosmonaut" goes against the DRY principles ;)<p>[1] <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronaut#Cosmonaut" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronaut#Cosmonaut</a>