Never deal with the Russians. They’re corrupt through and through, and given the choice between being successful at something themselves, or preventing America from being successful at it, they’ll choose the latter every time. They’re like Arabs/Muslims in that regard.
It seems like every time a new, wet-behind-the-ears president comes along, we have to learn that lesson all over again from scratch, at great harm to our national defense and scientific progress, and at great expense to the taxpayer. Veeeery discouraging. Ronald Reagan is the only president in recent memory to have known it: Don’t enter into any “cooperative” deals with the Russians.
What Reagan said was "Trust, but verify."
Indeed. He had a space station project, "Freedom" ready to go at a fraction of the price. The 'Rat Congress and RINO GHWB killed it in the late '80s and threw our lot in with the Russians to build Alpha.