Moon rocket blasts off, carrying Russia’s hope of first successful lunar landing since 1976

It's because of the war I'd bet. They hope to demonstrate to the world that they can walk and chew gum at the same time.

It’s probably been in development for a decent number of years. By the time they invaded Ukraine, it may have been more difficult to cancel it if 99% of such a big mission was complete.

Plus, Russia (with China as a partner) is looking to assert its dominance in space once again. If their partners are willing to throw in $$$, Russia will prove they are worthy of such a task & capable of providing rockets that can achieve escape velocity.

So, the ISS still relies on the Russian side to stay up. Russian Progress spacecraft do most of the reboosting for it to stay in orbit. It stinks, but that's still the reality up there. At least the war got every Western satellite off Russian rockets, but we're still doing crew exchanges, where a Roscomos Cosmonaut flies on a SpaceX Dragon 2 and a NASA Astronaut flies on a Soyuz.

I wish NASA would have been able to fund ISS replacements sooner so we could get out of there before 2030.

On the other hand let Putin burn as many resources as possible and then bring the hammer down