The chief of Russia's space corporation, Dmitry Rogozin, offered less-than-flattering comments about NASA's Moon program in a recent interview with a Russian tabloid newspaper, Komsomolskaya Pravda.

Asked about Russia's interest in sending humans to the Moon and possibly partnering with NASA, Rogozin dismissed the Artemis program. He responded: "Frankly speaking, we are not interested in participating in such a project."

The Russian space chief has publicly complained for some time that NASA has chosen a 2024 landing date for political reasons. He has also compared US efforts to build a sustainable program of exploration on the surface of the Moon to American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

"It's more of a political project for the US now," Rogozin said of Artemis. "With the lunar project, we are seeing our US partners move away from the principles of cooperation and mutual support that have developed with cooperation on the ISS. They see their program not as international but as similar to NATO."