MOSCOW, April 11. /TASS/. The presidents of Russia and Belarus, Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko, will hold talks in Moscow on Thursday.

On the following day, they will jointly participate in commemorative events marking the Cosmonautics Day.

The Belarusian leader will travel to Russia on a working visit. On April 11, he will discuss key issues of bilateral cooperation, including within the Union State of Russia and Belarus, with his Russian counterpart.

Also, Putin and Lukashenko will hold talks in the one-on-one format to discuss "issues that require consideration at the top level." They will also address regional and international issues and common responses to the existing challenges and threats.

Their previous bilateral meeting was held in Russia’s second largest city of St. Petersburg on January 29. Back then, the two leaders co-chaired a session of the Supreme State Council of the Union State of Russia and Belarus.

Cosmonautics Day events

The press service of the Belarusian president said that Putin and Lukashenko were expected to hold a joint event on the occasion of Cosmonautics Day on April 12. The presidents will talk to the cosmonauts and will discuss future prospects of cooperation in space exploration. They will also sum up the results of a recent mission to the International Space Station (ISS) where a crew of the Union State of Belarus and Russia worked for the first time in history.

Earlier, Roscosmos First Deputy CEO Andrey Yelchaninov said the event will include a meeting with Belarusian cosmonaut Marina Vasilevskaya.

Vasilevskaya, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky and NASA female astronaut Laurel O'Hara returned to Earth from the ISS on April 6 aboard the Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft. O'Hara arrived at the station in September 2023 on a Soyuz MS-24, while Novitsky and Vasilevskaya arrived on March 25 of this year aboard a Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft as part of a two-week visiting expedition.