MOSCOW, October 22. /TASS/. Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev started talks on Monday in Moscow with US National Security Adviser John Bolton, Patrushev’s Spokesman Yevgeny Anoshin said.

"A meeting between Nikolai Patrushev and John Bolton began in Moscow," the spokesman said.

Bolton began on Monday his two-day working program in the Russian capital. Trump’s adviser earlier tweeted that on October 20 he would be travelling to Russia, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia to meet with his counterparts in order "to advance American interests on a range of security issues."

At the upcoming meeting, the US diplomat is expected to focus on the US plans to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty), a milestone arms control agreement signed between the United States and the Soviet Union in 1987.

In Moscow, Bolton is also scheduled to meet with representatives of the Russian Foreign Ministry and Putin’s foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s meeting with Bolton is still being prepared, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Sunday. Ushakov noted that Bolton had requested a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

The first meeting in the Bolton-Patrushev format was held in Geneva on August 23. The sides agreed to resume Russian-US contacts at the level of defense and foreign policy officials and the General Staff.