Red planet indeed.

Russian strongman Vladimir Putin said his country plans to explore Mars “soon” — a mission by the Motherland that could beat the US expedition to the planet by a year.

“We are planning unmanned and later manned launches, into deep space, as part of a lunar program and for Mars exploration,” Putin said in a new documentary about him, Newsweek reported.

“The closest mission is very soon — we are planning to launch a mission to Mars in 2019,” he boldly declared without specifying which month.

NASA is planning its own mission to the red planet scheduled for between July and August 2020, when the positions of the two planets relative to each other are optimal for a landing, the mag reported.

The Russian leader — who is expected to easily be re-elected Sunday — said his country also would launch a mission to the moon.

“Our specialists will try to make landings on the poles, because there is reason to believe that there can be water there,” he said.

“There, there is progress to be made, studies of other planets, distant space can be started from there,” he said in the documentary hosted by Andrey Kondrashov and posted on social media site vkontakte.

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union launched the space race when it announced it would launch a satellite “in the near future” — and beat the US on Oct. 4, 1957, with its diminutive Sputnik 1.

It also beat the US by launching the first human into space — Yuri Gagarin — on April 12, 1961. But the United States won the race to the moon in 1969, when Apollo 11 landed on the lunar surface.

These days, the race to Mars is heating up with SpaceX boss Elon Musk in the mix.

Musk, who recently launched a Tesla car on top of a SpaceX Falcon rocket, on Sunday said his Mars rocket may be ready for test flights in 2019.

“We want a new space race. Races are exciting,” he said last month.

On Tuesday, President Trump told troops in California that American astronauts will be heading for Mars.

“Very soon we’re going to Mars. You wouldn’t be going to Mars if my opponent won, that I can tell you. You wouldn’t even be thinking about it,” Trump said to cheers.

The president signed a directive in December aimed at sending astronauts back to the moon.

The Space Policy Directive 1 ordered NASA “to lead an innovative space exploration program to send American astronauts back to the Moon, and eventually Mars,” spokesman Hogan Gidley said in December, The Hill reported.

Several other countries also are planning missions to Mars, including China, the United Arab Emirates and India.

During his address in San Diego, Trump also launched the idea of a military branch dedicated to the final frontier.

“Space is a war-fighting domain, just like the land, air and sea,” he said gleefully. “We have the Air Force, we’ll have the Space Force!”