MOSCOW, July 8. /TASS/. Sri Lanka’s Education Minister Susil Premajayantha, the presidential representative, is scheduled to visit Russia on July 10-16, and his meeting with Russian Science and Higher Education Minister Valery Falkov has already been confirmed, Sri Lanka’s embassy in Moscow told TASS on Friday.

"Honorable Susil Premajayantha, Minister of Education of Sri Lanka, is coming [to Russia]. He is authorized to discuss a wide range of issues. We have asked via the Russian Foreign Ministry for meetings with various ministries. We know that the meeting with the Science and Higher Education Minister has been confirmed as a profile meeting, but we have requested meetings at a wide range of ministries, as he is planning to discuss different issues," the diplomatic mission said.

"[Susil Premajayantha] is arriving on July 10 and [will be in Russia] until [July] 16," the embassy added.

Earlier, Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said in an interview with TASS that his country’s official delegation led by Premajayantha intended to visit Russia soon to negotiate oil imports and Russian assistance to that island nation, which is hit hard by a dire economic crisis.

Sri Lanka goes through its worst economic crisis since independence, facing severe shortages of gasoline and diesel fuels. The island has practically run out of them.

When asked by TASS, the Russian government did not elaborate on who from the cabinet’s economic bloc Premajayantha might hold talks with, redirecting this question to the Russian Foreign Ministry.