They might send something unmanned and never to return but I doubt they will send any people. I suspect they know the truth about the Earth. After all, they are zhong guo, the middle kingdom, in the middle of the Earth.

Russia’s new rockets also have problems, are still expendable, cost even more to make than their notional predecessors, have much less extant launch infrastructure and efforts to expand said infrastructure have been repeatedly hamstrung by endemic Russian corruption and quality lapses.

I think the Russian manned space program will effectively end whenever the ISS is closed down. I don’t think Russia will ever loft any of the putative ISS modules they’ve been screwing up and rebuilding repeatedly these last 20 years. I don’t think they will separate their ISS modules and establish a subset space station when ISS is decommissioned. I don’t think their Soyuz-successor manned vehicle will ever fly. I don’t think Russians will ever travel beyond LEO or stand on the Moon unless they are able to hitch rides with the Chinese. I regard the probability of that as small. By the middle of the coming decade, Russia will be hard pressed just to make enough launches – using mostly their old rockets and infrastructure – to keep their military and civilian space asset base minimally functional. No more manned space stuff. No more unmanned deep space missions of any kind.

When the U.S. tried to consolidate all U.S. launches to the Space Shuttle, back in the 1980s, putting NASA in complete control over the launch industry, the U.S. launch industry was almost obliterated. The damage to the U.S. industry allowed Ariane to make great gains in commercial launches. Thus, the U.S. launch industry had to rely heavily on government payloads as it slowly recovered from the mistake of that government takeover.

Lord only knows how the Russians will manage to recover from the mistake of 2015. Assuming it does.

It is hard to get a read on what is going on, over there, because the article gives two competing opinions from the two top officials in Russian government. From the article:

“This is a blunt and direct assertion: We need to quit projecting future plans, stop talking about where our missions will land in 2030, get to work, talk less, and do more,” [Prime Minister] Medvedev said. “We need to be more active in commercializing our space industry and increase Russia’s international market share of commercial launches.”

and:

“We must also contemplate a lunar landing and the exploration of deep space, but all of these goals must be part of an overarching strategy, not just populism and grandiose projections,” [Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov] said. “The space industry today is fairly commercially successful in the world, and we must approach issues of space exploration and providing all space services with a certain amount of practicality.”

Is Russia’s space industry today fairly commercially successful in the world or not? Should they stop talking about where their missions will land in 2030 or contemplate a lunar landing and the exploration of deep space for the future, such as 2030?

Add to that the recent corruption and continuing mismanagement of its space program.
https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/contract-cancelled-for-vostochny-launchpad-for-angara/

The Russian space industry should not be sitting around on their sorry butts filling out request forms for equipment they should already have.

It looks like Russia has quite a cluster bleep on its hands.

From the movie “Heartbreak Ridge”
Colonel Meyers: What’s your assessment of this exercise?

Highway: It’s a cluster [bleep].

Colonel Meyers: Say again?

Highway: Marines are fighting men, sir. They shouldn’t be sitting around on their sorry asses filling out request forms for equipment they should already have.

Colonel Meyers: Interesting observation. Carry on, Major.

In Russian neither of these guys would be free to do anything, as all space projects must be supervised by Roscosmos. Roscosmos however is a government bureaucracy, and such bureaucracies are routinely loath to take risks and give power and opportunity to new people outside its power structure. Your project would either be squashed, or co-oped by the powers-in-charge so that it would not fly, as intended.

This is a great example of how medicare for all or any other form of single customer healthcare schemes would play out. Other countries can manage because the USA is such a powerhouse of creation but if we adopt a system like this, we wont be the only ones who suffer, the entire world will.