The Russian Soyuz MS-22 manned spacecraft docked to the International Space Station (ISS) sustained damage to its external casing, the Roscosmos press office reported on Thursday.

"According to the preliminary information, the external casing of the Soyuz MS-22 crew spacecraft’s instrumentation and equipment compartment was damaged on Thursday, December 15," the press office said in a statement.

As Roscosmos specified, the crew later reported an activation of the sensor of the spaceship’s fault detection system that signaled a drop in pressure in the cooling system.

"The visual inspection confirmed the leaking, following which a decision was made on interrupting scheduled extra-vehicular activities by ISS Russian segment crewmembers Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin," the statement says.

Roscosmos female cosmonaut Anna Kikina made photos and video footage of the spaceship’s external surface with the help of a camera on the ERA robotic arm.

"The data has been transmitted to Mission Control and specialists have begun studying the images," Roscosmos said.