This is an incredible claim considering that Russia never made it to the moon in the first place. The best they were able to do was send a probe to the moon...and that crashed.
On the other hand, the Russians did excel at keeping Mir in orbit well past its expected lifespan. That's no easy feat.
I wouldn't be suprised in the least if the Lunar mission and subsequent Mars mission wound up being a multi-national effort between NASA, ESA, the Russians and (don't laugh) the Chinese.