Commander of Russian vehicle reversing around space station (7)
I believe the answer is:
admiral
'commander' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'russian vehicle reversing around space station' is the wordplay.
'russian vehicle' becomes 'lada' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'reversing' is a reversal indicator.
'around' indicates putting letters inside.
'space station' becomes 'Mir' (I've seen this in another clue).
'lada' back-to-front is 'adal'.
'adal' enclosing 'mir' is 'ADMIRAL'.
'of' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for admiral that I've seen before include "Senior naval officer" , "Brightly coloured butterfly" , "Highest ranking naval officer" , "Red butterfly at sea?" , "(White or red) butterfly" .)