MOSCOW, March 16. /TASS/. Setting the stage for an in-person, one-on-one meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping is of paramount importance now that the West is waging a full-blown cold war on the western front while gearing up to spark another one in the east, a Russian expert said on Thursday.

Against this backdrop, talks between the two presidents should cover a wide range of strategic issues, said Yury Tavrovsky, deputy chairman of the Russian-Chinese Friendship Society and head of the expert council at the Russian-Chinese Committee for Friendship, Peace and Development, at a press conference hosted by TASS.

"Xi Jinping’s [potential] visit to Moscow would be very important as Russia and China are currently in a cold war with the West, which we did not start but, rather, this war was imposed on us. Currently, on the global scale there are two fronts in this cold war - the western front and the eastern front," Tavrovsky said. "On the western front, in our corner of the world, hostilities are already in full swing, while preparations [for a war] are in their final stages on the eastern, Chinese, front, where the US has been deploying troops and updating existing agreements with its regional allies - South Korea, Japan and Australia," he elaborated.

Tensions have escalated around Taiwan and new [military] blocs, such as the trilateral AUKUS between Australia, Great Britain and the United States, and the QUAD [Quadrilateral Security Dialogue], comprising Australia, India, the US and Japan, are being established in the Asia-Pacific region, the expert said. Against this backdrop, it is high time that the leaders of Russia and China met for a discussion covering an extensive range of strategic issues.

"Under the circumstances, Putin and Xi, as two [supreme] commanders in chief, will of course discuss the situation in military and strategic terms. As leaders, they are also certain to discuss economic cooperation, given that Russia and China are currently becoming the second front for each other: China has been buying our sanctioned goods, while we can assure China that it will continue to receive everything it needs to continue its development [from us] should Beijing come under sanctions," Tavrovsky concluded.

On Monday, Reuters said, citing sources, that Xi was planning to visit Moscow for a meeting with Putin as early as next week. The Kremlin has not yet officially confirmed that such a meeting will take place.

The two leaders last met in person on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, last September. During a conversation with Xi by video link in late December, Putin invited his Chinese counterpart to pay a state visit to Moscow in the spring of 2023.