MOSCOW, April 10. /TASS/. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko will make a working visit to Russia on April 11-12 to hold talks with President Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin said in a statement.
"The parties plan to discuss key issues related to the future development of bilateral cooperation, including the implementation of the decisions made at a meeting of the Supreme State Council of the Union State [of Russia and Belarus]," the statement reads.
According to the Belarusian presidential press service, Lukashenko will have "a one-on-one" meeting with Putin on April 11. The heads of state will discuss "cooperation between the two countries in various fields, as well as issues requiring top-level attention; another focus will be the regional and international situation and ways to coordinate actions to respond to the existing threats and challenges."
The Belarusian presidential press service also said that on April 12, the two presidents were expected to take part in a joint event dedicated to Cosmonautics Day. They will assess the outcome of a recent mission to the International Space Station (ISS), which for the first time involved a Union State crew. Putin and Lukashenko will also meet with cosmonauts and discuss the prospects for further cooperation in space.
Marina Vasilevskaya, the first female cosmonaut in the history of independent Belarus, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky and female NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara returned to Earth from the ISS aboard the Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft on April 6. O’Hara arrived at the ISS in September 2023 aboard the same spaceship, while Novitsky and Vasilevskaya arrived at the orbital outpost aboard the Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft for a two-week visiting mission on March 25, 2024.