Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is planning on visiting Belgrade for the second time this year, daily Danas has learned from top Serbian officials.
According to the daily’s sources, the most likely date of the visit is October 22-23.
“Putin is coming again, in about a month, probably on October 22-23 and the reason is a campaign for elections in Russia,” Danas writes.
The Russian prime minister officially visited Serbia on March 23, when he spoke to Serbian President Boris Tadić, the Serbian government and Prime Minister Mirko Cvetković about political and economic cooperation.
Putin’s wish to revisit Belgrade just seven months later has surprised many Serbian top officials, but it is only a part of his international activities ahead of the Russian parliamentary elections in December and presidential elections in March, Danas writes.
According to latest information from Moscow, current Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will in March become a prime minister while Putin will take over the presidential position.
The daily’s sources, who attended the meetings during Putin’s previous visit, could not say which topics could be discussed in October.
However, they pointed out that the Russian prime minister presented to the Serbian government a list of local energy and infrastructure projects and companies that Russia was interested in, so that it was therefore possible that this could be one of the topics of the talks.
Source b92.net
