Russia's state space corporation said in a statement the craft 'moved into an unpredictable orbit and ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the surface of the Moon'.
Russia's Luna-25 spacecraft spun out of control and smashed into the Moon, the country's space corporation said.
"The apparatus moved into an unpredictable orbit and ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the surface of the Moon," Roscosmos said in a statement. It also comes as Russia's $US2 trillion economy faces its biggest external challenge for decades: the pressure of both Western sanctions and fighting the biggest land war in Europe since World War Two.
Russia has been racing against India - whose Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft launched earlier in August and is scheduled to land on the Moon's south pole on August 23 - and more broadly against China and the United States, which both have advanced lunar ambitions.
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