MOSCOW, AUG 17: To those who blamed Mir's former crew for its calamities, the cosmonauts had a bitter response yesterday: the battered station remains in orbit only because they risked their lives to save it.

Vasily Tsibliyev and Alexander Lazutkin, giving an exceptionally candid account of their ill-starred mission, said they had been made scapegoats by Russian President Boris Yeltsin and other critics.

``Many people would have liked us to come back dead,'' Tsibliyev suggested, his voice strained with emotion. The two cosmonauts said they had remained on board the space station through three crises even though flight manuals told them to abandon ship.

``We didn't even think about running away,'' said Tsibliyev, the mission's commander. They did not hide their dismay at what they called ``unfair criticism'' back on earth, especially in the media. ``It has been a long-time tradition here in Russia to look for scapegoats,'' he said. In this case, there is no specific person to blame.''

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.