Actually, in Russia do they have a pitch for where they’d rather draw the finish line? I admit it is probably influenced by having a US upbringing, but “landing on the Moon” does seem like a natural finish line for a space race.

The move of picking an advantageous finish line is easily countered by… picking an obvious successor finish line. If they’d stuck a base on the moon that’d have been a pretty compelling “actually, here’s the next finish line.”

Maybe they have some space-station based claim.