Yes, they do seem to be lagging. > Ironically, India and Russia had at first planned to jointly design and launch Chandrayaan-2, after the historic discovery o

Yes, they do seem to be lagging. > Ironically, India and Russia had at first planned to jointly design and launch Chandrayaan-2, after the historic discovery of water by ISRO’s first lunar probe in 2011. Differences arose between their space agencies over the configuration of Chandrayaan-2. While ISRO was keen on a lander and rover, its Russian counterpart felt a lander would suffice, according to Dr. Annadurai. > The upshot: ISRO reconfigured the spacecraft and hoisted it as its first probe to Mars (Mars Orbiter Mission or MOM) in November 2013, while its Russian counterpart teamed up with the Chinese space agency for a voyage to the Moon. The Russian lander, however, was lost during a midcourse correction, he added. - https://www.rt.com/india/581733-india-lands-on-the-moon/ https://www.rt.com/india/581733-india-lands-on-the-moon/ They are lagging behind because the breakup of the USSR, and their subsequent experiment with "capitalism" really damaged their economy and local industries. That disruption, stagnation, and even shutdown of many local industries lead to the loss of IP, scientific manpower and neglect of R&D for sometime. It is only in the last decade or two now that some economic stability has returned to Russia and it started focusing on R&D again. It is however difficult to say if they can catch up. When India once setup their own foundry to build and produce chips, they were at one point equivalent to the Taiwanese in chip process node. But they shut it down after a fire. Now more than 2+ decades later, even if India setups another fab, who knows how many decades it would take India to catch up with Taiwan.