MOSCOW, June 2. /TASS/. Russia’s Defense Ministry intends to further develop Russia-Serbia cooperation in the military and military-technical spheres, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said at a working meeting with Speaker of the National Assembly (parliament) of Serbia Ivica Dadic in Moscow on Wednesday.

"Today, we are actively developing our military and military-technical cooperation. We are holding joint drills. Serbian officers are training and studying at our universities and we propose expanding this practice," the Russian defense chief said.

The Russian servicemen have recently returned from large-scale drills that have been successfully held on the territory of Serbia, the defense minister recalled.

"I believe that the drills, which will run both in Russia and on Serbian territory, will be successful as well," Shoigu added.

For his part, the speaker of the Serbian parliament said that Serbia would always be grateful to the Russian people for their assistance and support in difficult times. "We share both big trust and a great friendship between us. And we have achieved serious results over this time," Dadic said.

The speaker of the Serbian parliament expressed his gratitude to Shoigu for developing and fostering relations between the peoples of Serbia and Russia.

"I always stress in Serbia that Sergey Shoigu is the person who has been one of the great friends of the Serbian people since the very start of his political activity. This can be proven by the times when Serbia went through an ordeal, when Serbia was bombed, when wars raged on the territory of the former Yugoslavia and when our people lived through hard times," Dadic said.