ISTANBUL

A former chief of Russian space agency Roscosmos has voiced doubt over the authenticity of the 1969 Apollo 11 Moon landing.

“About 10 years ago, when I worked in the government, I sent an official request to Roscosmos to provide me with documentary evidence of the Americans' stay on the moon,” Dmitry Rogozin said in a statement on Telegram on Sunday.

Rogozin said that he was “embarrassed” about the return of Soviet cosmonauts from space expeditions barely able to stand on their feet and undergoing long recoveries, while US astronauts crawled out of their lunar ships, in his words, “like cucumbers from the garden.”

Rogozin further said that he continued to search for evidence on the US landings on the Moon while working at Roscosmos, but said he could not find anything other than the “angry accusations” of some academics who claimed that he undermined Russia’s “sacred cooperation with NASA.”

Rogozin also said he received a call from a high-ranking official accusing him of "aggravating the international situation" with his doubts about the Apollo 11 landing.

“I did not undermine or aggravate anything, but only by virtue of my nature I tried to get to the bottom of the details and establish, at least for myself, the true state of affairs in the issue of exploration of the Moon by our competitors. It was not clear to me how the United States, at that level of technological development of the ‘60s in the last century, did what they still cannot do now,” Rogozin said.

On July 20, 1969, NASA spacecraft Apollo 11 landed on the moon with astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins on board.

All three became iconic figures around the world, with Armstrong becoming the first human to set foot on the moon's surface.​​​​​​​