German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has voiced hope that his current visit to Russia will help improve strained ties between Berlin and Moscow.
Steinmeier, a two-time former foreign minister, told Russian President Vladimir Putin he was unhappy with the state of bilateral relations and that both sides needed to work to improve it.
Steinmeier's visit to Moscow, the first by a German president since 2010, took place amid strained relations over Russia's 2014 annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region and its backing of a separatist uprising in eastern Ukraine which has killed more than 10,000 people since April 2014.
"It's essential that we use this opportunity for us as presidents to continue our dialogue to try to improve our bilateral relations, the state of which we can't be happy about," Steinmeier told Putin at the start of talks at the Kremlin.
"I'm convinced that we need to resist the alienation that has grown up between our countries in recent years and to do that we need to continue the dialogue and need long-term attempts from both sides to find solutions in crises."
The Kremlin said Putin and Steinmeier "plan to discuss the current state of Russian-German relations and the prospects for their development" as well as discussing "pressing global issues."
Steinmeier, who is the ceremonial German head of state and holds little real power, earlier in the day held talks with former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and representatives of Memorial, a widely respected human rights group.
The United States, other Western countries, and the European Union have imposed sanctions on Russia over its seizure of Crimea and its backing of separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Several cease-fire deals announced as part of the Minsk accords signed in September 2014 and February 2015 to resolve the conflict have failed to hold.
Steinmeier has long called for increased engagement with Moscow, and his Social Democrat Party wants a gradual easing of EU sanctions imposed on Moscow for its role in Ukraine.
The Social Democrats will go into opposition after being in a coalition government with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives for the past four years.
The German president was also scheduled to attend a ceremony for the return of ownership of Moscow’s St. Peter and Paul Cathedral to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Russia.
The cathedral was seized by the Soviet state in 1938.