Russian official wants to investigate U.S. moon landings

It took me a couple of times to believe this wasn't actually an attempt at humor (it may be still but the Post seems to be taking it somewhat seriously). Is this stuff playing well, and by that I mean making the government look better or more effective, in Russia itself? I realize a reader outside the US who was reading stories that show up in the gossip newspapers in supermarkets (my favorite the government's secret agreement with Aliens they met at Roswell NM) as if they were serious would have a pretty dim view of our government's sanity.