Attempts to seize the territories of other planets are harmful to international cooperation, Deputy Director General of Roscosmos for International Cooperation Sergey Saveliev said on Tuesday, EDNews reports citing TASS.

"Attempts to expropriate outer space and aggressive plans to actually seize territories of other planets hardly set the countries for fruitful cooperation," Saveliev said.

He recalled that there were examples in history when one country decided to start seizing territories in its interests. "Everyone remembers what came of it,"Saveliev added.

In turn, Director General of Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin on his Twitter page noted that Trump's two decrees "on the actual assignment of the moon and other celestial bodies to the United States" and on the state of emergency in the United States due to coronavirus can be related. "We are trying to understand how these decrees are interconnected," he wrote.

US President Donald Trump signed an executive decree on Monday to support commercial exploitation of resources on the moon and other celestial bodies, directing the US administration to resist any attempt to view outer space as the public domain of mankind. The document, in particular, emphasizes that the United States does not recognize the Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, adopted by a resolution of the UN General Assembly in December 1979.

According to the resolution, exploration and use of the moon is attributed to all mankind and is carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries, regardless of the degree of their economic or scientific development.