The Kremlin has said U.S. national security adviser John Bolton plans to visit Moscow, without providing details about the trip.
"As far as we know, such a trip will actually take place. This is all that we can say right now," President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on June 21 when asked whether Moscow was expecting Bolton's visit.
Earlier on June 21, Russia's Interfax news agency quoted sources in Washington as saying that Bolton was expected to come to travel to Moscow next week to prepare for a possible meeting of Putin and his U.S. counterpart, Donald Trump.
Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia was "ready for contacts" with the United States.
"If the agreement on a high-level meeting is reached, it will be announced," Lavrov added.
On June 9, Peskov said the Russian and U.S. presidents discussed the prospects for their meeting in a March phone call and talked about locations, with the Austrian capital, Vienna, as a possibility.
"There have been no concrete agreements or understandings, and no specific discussions are being conducted now," the spokesman said at the time.
The U.S. president said in March he would meet Putin soon, but since then ties between Washington and Moscow have further deteriorated over the conflict in Syria and the poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain, which the West blames on Moscow.
