HELSINKI, August 21. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin has arrived in Helsinki on a working visit, during which he will hold talks with his Finnish colleague Sauli Niinisto.
Putin is set to arrive at the Presidential Palace, where the talks between the two leaders will begin, followed by a joint press conference. After that, Putin and Niinisto will travel on a speedboat to the Suomenlinna sea fortress. A working dinner will be held there, during which the talks will continue. Then the Finnish side plans a one-on-one conversation between the presidents.
Earlier, Kremlin Aide Yuri Ushakov informed that the presidents aim to discuss the development of bilateral cooperation, cooperation in the sphere of trade, economy, investment, environment protection, as well as in the inter-regional and humanitarian spheres. "They will also discuss the prospects of recovering constructive dialogue between Russia and the European Union taking into account that Finland holds the EU chairmanship from July to December of the current year," Ushakov said.
According to him, cooperation in the Arctic Region will become one of the topics of the upcoming talks. "Most probably, they will discuss the issue of security in the Baltic Sea area, including the well-known initiative of the Finnish president on raising the level of aviation security over the Baltic, namely, the use of transponders by the military aviation," the Kremlin official added.
On August 20, the Finnish leader held a press conference, during which he stated that he might discuss mass protests in Moscow during the meeting with Putin. Niinisto expressed his interest in Moscow’s position on the situation in Ukraine, in light of his plans to meet with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky in the near future. Speaking of the issues on the bilateral agenda, the Finnish president did not rule out the possibility of discussion the introduction of electronic visas for Finnish citizens to visit separate regions of the Russian Federation.