The Russian president is expected to meet with his Chinese counterpart and take part in an SCO summit

Russian President Vladimir Putin will embark on a four-day trip to China next week for talks with President Xi Jinping, Russian media reported on Sunday.

Putin is also reportedly expected to attend a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) during the trip, which will include "large-scale talks" between broader delegations, according to Vesti 1, citing Kremlin correspondent Pavel Zarubin. The visit is set to become the Russian leader's longest foreign trip since 2014.

The outlet did not specify the exact dates of the visit, but the two-day SCO summit is scheduled to begin on August 31.

In addition, Beijing will hold major commemorative events on September 3 to mark the 80th anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War II.

Putin accepted Xi's personal invitation to attend the commemoration while the Chinese leader was visiting Moscow for the Victory Day celebrations in May.

The planned visit had previously sparked speculation that the Russian leader could meet US President Donald Trump while in China. Rumors of such a meeting circulated ahead of the Putin-Trump summit in Alaska earlier this month, with neither side explicitly ruling it out.

"If it so happens that [Trump] is there, then, of course, we cannot rule out that the question of the expediency of holding a meeting will be raised," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in late July.

Speculation had also emerged about a potential three-way Putin-Trump-Xi meeting. Moscow, however, signaled it had nothing to say about such a meeting. "We know nothing about the possibility of such a meeting," Peskov has said.

(RT.com)