Prior to his departure to China Russian President Vladimir Putin held a meeting with members of the Russian Security Council (SC) in Sochi to discuss the agenda of the upcoming talks in Shanghai and the situation in Ukraine, President's Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said.
“As you know, today Vladimir Putin is heading to China, to Shanghai, where he will be on a formal visit, and will attend a meeting of the CICA (Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia) heads of government. Prior to the departure the president held an emergency meeting with the permanent members of the Security Council in Sochi. The attendees included the speakers of the upper and lower houses of the parliament, Valentina Matviyenko and Sergei Naryshkin, Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev, his deputy Rashid Nurgaliyev, Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, Director of the Federal Security Council Aleksandr Bortnikov, head of the Russian External Intelligence chief Mikhail Fradkov and SC permanent member Boris Gryzlov,” Peskov told reporters.
“The discussion of international issues focused on the situation in Ukraine where tensions have been rising over the past few days as the punitive operation involving the regular army continues. The discussion also involved a number of pressing international issues that will be on the agenda of the upcoming Shanghai talks,” he said.
