Kremlin says preparations for Putin's visit to Türkiye 'underway'

MOSCOW

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed on Tuesday that preparations for Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to Türkiye are underway.

Speaking at a news conference in Moscow, Peskov said the visit dates will be announced "in due time… as soon as the presidents finalize them.”

Last week, Turkish media reported that Putin will meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Feb. 12 in Türkiye, without providing any additional information.

Earlier in the day, the Russian Foreign Ministry said the Russian and Turkish foreign ministers discussed the schedule of the bilateral contacts during a meeting in New York on Monday.

Concerning a video posted by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) on X, urging Russians to cooperate, Peskov said: "This is actually a fairly common practice. Intelligence agencies around the world very often use the media and social networks to recruit new employees."

"Someone should inform the CIA that VK (Russian social network) is much more popular in Russia than the banned X, and the audience of VK is much larger," he said.