OREANDA-NEWS   Bolivian President Luis Alberto Arce Katakora is expected to visit Russia in 2023, Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matvienko said. "I have informed Russian President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin about our meeting with you. He asked me to convey his great greetings to you, conveyed his best wishes to you and said: "Please remind the President of Bolivia that he owes Russia." You have an invitation from the Russian side to pay an official visit, so far it has not been implemented," Matvienko said at a meeting in Brazil with the President of Bolivia.

"We very much hope that in 2023 your work schedule will allow you to pay an official visit to Russia at any time convenient for you," she added. According to Matvienko, it would be very important. Matvienko thanked the President of Bolivia "for the support of our flagship project - the Center for Nuclear Research and Technology." "It is necessary to solve the existing technical and financial operational problems without delay in order to launch this center by 2025. Gazprom is also active, you know, in Bolivia," she said.

For his part, the President of Bolivia asked Matvienko to "convey a warm greeting to President Putin." "I had several opportunities to talk to President Putin on the phone. In particular, we worked closely on the issue of vaccines. And I told him that we intend to further strengthen our bilateral relations. There are several topics that we would like to raise. The first topic is the security and defense of the plurinational state of Bolivia," he said at the meeting.

The video from this meeting was provided to the media by the press service of the Federation Council. On the eve of Matvienko arrived in the capital of Brazil to participate in the inauguration of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, which took place on January 1. The delegation also includes Deputy Speaker of the Federation Council Konstantin Kosachev and Chief of Staff of the upper House of Parliament Gennady Golov.