Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday said that Russia will continue to work on space exploration.
"Russia will definitely explore outer space. We will definitely work in this direction," Putin said in a speech at a gala evening on the occasion of Cosmonautics Day.
Putin further said that Russia needs to create sovereign space systems and design a Russian orbital station that will later become an outpost of his country to study and explore outer space.
Putin also said the new orbital station will be aimed, among other things, at "solving the problems that our country faces in the broadest sense of the word."
"For us, these are advanced technologies necessary for the Earth, this is a qualitatively different scale for the development of our science and economy, a reliable, modern level of the country's security," Putin added.
He also said that Russia should return to organizing missions to other planets and quickly resume its lunar program.
Cosmonautics Day marks the first manned space flight on April 12, 1961, by Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.
