The ambitious unmanned craft will be just the first, with other manned missions to follow soon after in a bid to colonise the Red Planet.

Speaking in a new documentary by Andrey Kondrashov, President Putin said: "We are planning unmanned – and later manned launches – into deep space as part of a lunar program and for Mars exploration.

"The closest mission is very soon, we are planning to launch a mission to Mars in 2019."

RT reported that Russian scientists would be aiming to land near the polar regions of the planet, in the hope of finding water.

Russia has previously boasted it would be able to reach Mars in just six weeks, with the space race between the US, Russia and China continuing to heat up.