The launch of the Luna-25 lander will take place "on August 11 at 02:10:57 Moscow time" (23:10:57 GMT Thursday), Roscosmos said in a statement, at a time when other world powers, such as the United States and China, are multiplying missions for moon landings.

Roscosmos explained that a Soyuz launcher had been "assembled" on the Vostochny cosmodrome in the Russian Far East for the launch of Luna-25, which will land near the south pole of the Moon, "in difficult terrain".

The flight is expected to last between "four and a half days and five and a half days," according to data published by Roscosmos and cited by the official Tass news agency.

Authorities in the far eastern Khabarovsk region have already announced the evacuation of a village from Friday morning, as this locality is in the possible fallout zone of the first stage of the launcher.

Once on the moon, Luna-25, which weighs nearly 800 kilograms, will have the mission, for at least one year, to "take (samples) and analyze the soil and conduct long-term scientific research," said the Russian space agency in its official statement.

The launch is the first mission of Russia's new lunar program and comes as the country seeks to develop its own projects and strengthen its space collaboration with Beijing, as its cooperation with Western space powers has been ravaged since the Russian military began its assault on Ukraine.

A Soyuz 2.1b rocket carrying the Luna-25 lander at the Vostochny cosmodrome north of Blagoveschensk in the Amur region of the Russian Far East on August 7, 2023 © Handout / Russian Space Agency Roscosmos/AFP

"(It) is of great importance, not even for Putin's Russia, but for the post-Putin Russia, a peaceful Russia," Vitaly Egorov, a Russian space expert, told AFP.

"This launch will show that the Russians are capable of engaging in the peaceful exploration of space," he said.

- Glorious past, uncertain future -

After Vladimir Putin launched the military offensive, the European Space Agency (ESA) gave up working with Moscow on the launch of Luna-25 and on future missions 26 and 27.

Russia had said it would continue its lunar projects and replace ESA equipment with domestically manufactured scientific equipment.

A Soyuz 2.1b rocket carrying the Luna-25 lander at the Vostochny cosmodrome north of Blagoveschensk in the Amur region of the Russian Far East © Handout / Russian Space Agency Roscosmos / AFP

However, it has struggled to innovate for decades, its space sector having been plagued by lack of resources and corruption.

It has therefore relied for years on the reliability of its launchers but Roscosmos faces ever-increasing competition and its position has deteriorated with Western sanctions.

Russia still claims to be a great space power in view of its Soviet past.

During a trip to the Vostochny cosmodrome in April 2022, Vladimir Putin recalled that the USSR had succeeded in 1961 in sending the first man into space, Yuri Gagarin, despite "total" sanctions taken against it.

He had assured that Russia would continue to implement its lunar program despite Western retaliation because of the conflict in Ukraine.

"We are guided by the desire of our ancestors to move forward, despite all the difficulties and all the attempts to prevent us," the Russian president said during an exchange with employees of the cosmodrome.

Last June, however, the head of Roscosmos, Yuri Borisov, described the Russian lunar mission as "risky".

"All over the world, the probability of success of such missions is estimated at about 70%," he noted.

A Soyuz 2.1b rocket carrying the Luna-25 lander at the Vostochny cosmodrome north of Blagoveschensk in the Amur region of the Russian Far East © Handout / Russian Space Agency Roscosmos / AFP

The last lunar mission of the USSR was that of the Luna-24 space probe, in 1976, more than 25 years after the first program of its kind.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia has struggled to relaunch itself in space exploration and its programs are now competing not only with state actors but also with private initiatives, such as those of Space X, billionaire Elon Musk.

© 2023 AFP