MOSCOW, October 3. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday he hopes that Russia and Germany will continue further bilateral cooperation aimed at ensuring stability and security in Europe, the Kremlin press service has said.

Putin sent a congratulatory message to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and German President Joachim Gauck on occasion of the Day of German Unity on Friday.

In the message, Putin said he expects that Moscow and Berlin will be able to “ensure further boosting of a whole range of mutually beneficial Russian and German cooperation projects and partnership engagement in solving topical international issues in the interests of the peoples of the two countries and with the goal of maintaining stability and security on the European continent and in the whole world.”

“The head of the Russian state has highly assessed the considerable and positive potential accumulated in the relations between Russia and Germany, and stressed a special importance of reserving and increasing it in the current uneasy time period,” the press service said.

The Russian leader has noted that Moscow is interested in developing a constructive dialogue with Germany. “We expect that the ‘cross’ Years of the Russian and German languages and literature held in the countries will contribute to strengthening mutual understanding and confidence between the two peoples,” Putin said in the message.

Last year, Germany, Russia’s most important trade partner in Europe, exported about €36 billion of goods to Russia. In the first half of this year, Germany’s exports to Russia plunged over 15%, before Russia’s agricultural ban imposed in early August amid Western sanctions.