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Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will meet on Friday with the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell, who is in Moscow on February 4-6. This is the first visit of Chief of EU diplomacy since 2017, when Borrell's predecessor Federica Mogherini visited Russia, TASS reported.

For the first time, Borrell spoke of his intention to visit the Russian capital back in early 2020. At the time he was going to first make a visit to Ukraine, and immediately after - to Russia. However, his plans were thwarted by the coronavirus pandemic, due to which the borders were closed. Official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova stressed that the visit was planned.

In March, the European Council plans to hold a high-level discussion of the EU-Russia relations strategy. In this regard, the Russian Foreign Ministry stressed that Lavrov and Borrell will discuss the whole range of "problems and prospects of Russia-EU relations."

In addition, head of European diplomacy arrived in Moscow amid criticism of Russia from the EU states over the situation with Alexei Navalny and the unauthorized protests that followed it. As the Russian side has repeatedly emphasized, such statements from foreign states are "gross interference in the internal affairs of the Russian Federation."