The Russian builder of the Soyuz spacecraft said construction of new spacecraft may be halted by a lack of funding.

"If they do not give us either advances or credit in the next two or three weeks, as we foresaw in the federal program, we will probably be unable to be responsible for the preparation of the Soyuz," Vitaly Lapota, president and chief designer of Energy Corp., told radio station Mayak.

The Kommersant newspaper said the Russian Space Agency's Anatoly Perminov dismissed the concerns, saying the program has enough Soyuz craft for the next year.