ST. PETERSBURG, July 29. /TASS/. Moscow views Dakar as a reliable partner in Africa and plans to expand cooperation with it, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday at a meeting with his Senegalese counterparts, Macky Sall.

"I would like to stress that Senegal is Russia’s reliable and important partner in Africa. In 2022, your country was numbers one among African countries located south of the Sahara in terms of trade with Russia. It reached nearly 1.5 billion US dollars. This is quite a good figure," Putin said, adding that this trend should be further developed.