Finnish Foreign Minister Soini to Visit Moscow on June 6

Finnish Foreign Minister Timo Soini will visit Moscow on June 6 to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — On Thursday, the Finnish Foreign Ministry said that during the meeting the two sides would discuss the situation in Ukraine and Syria and security in the Baltic Sea region among other international issues. The Russia-Finland bilateral and regional cooperation will be also on the agenda of the meeting.

According to the ministry, Soini is also expected to meet in Moscow with representatives of local civil society organizations.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said earlier that Soini would arrive in Moscow on the invitation of Lavrov and it would be the first Soini's visit to Russia since he took office in May 2015.

In an interview with Sputnik, published on Saturday, Zakharova stressed that Russia and Finland managed to retain constructive relations despite the negative political backdrop of the Russia-EU ties.

"Even though the political backdrop and the European Union’s policies in the context of the events in Ukraine, which Finland supports, do affect bilateral relations and practical cooperation, it can be stated that the… potential of neighborliness allowed Russia and Finland’s relations to maintain their constructive, pragmatic and non-confrontational nature," she pointed out.

Zakharova reminded that Moscow and Helsinki worked together in the United Nations, international organizations and regional formats in Northern Europe and the Arctic while Lavrov and Soini in 2015 met on the sidelines of international conferences three times — in New York, in Finland's city of Oulu and in Belgrade.