Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin will hold a meeting during their visit to Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan, on Wednesday.

Assistant to the Russian President for Foreign Policy Yuri Viktorovich Ushakov said on Tuesday that the meeting will take place on the sidelines of the 6th summit of the heads of state of the Caspian Sea littoral states. 

This is Putin's first known trip abroad since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin would return to Moscow Wednesday evening.

The meeting is the second between the two presidents since Raisi took office in August 2021. They met in the Russian capital Moscow in January 2022.

Raisi is also scheduled to hold separate meetings with his counterparts from the other three participating countries in the summit, namely Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan Republic.

The meeting of the foreign ministers of these countries kicked off on Tuesday to “review cooperation in the Caspian Sea and discuss the further collaboration modalities for the upcoming meeting of leaders of five Caspian littoral states.”

Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said, "The meeting, organized on the eve of the Fifth Caspian Summit, witnessed the signing of a historical Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea.”

Addressing the event, Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said, “We support Russia's recent proposal to develop and establish a structure of cooperation in the Caspian Sea. This initiative strengthens and systematizes the five-way cooperation in the Caspian Sea.”