Kigali, 10 October 2013
President Kagame today received the Russian Federation Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mikhail Leonidovich Bogdanov who is on a tour of the region. The envoy has been in Rwanda to engage Rwanda government authorities on bilateral and regional issues and also to solicit the support of Rwanda for Russia to host the World Expo in 2020 in the city of Yekaterinburg.
Speaking to the press after the meeting, Bogdanov said:
“We have discussed the perspective of further strengthening of our traditionally good relations and political dialogue between our two countries on international and regional issues. We cooperate and appreciate working closely with Rwanda as a non permanent member of the UN Security Council. We will soon celebrate 50 years of cooperation and we look forward working together to achieve bigger things for our two nations.”
Rwanda and Russia have enjoyed friendly diplomatic relations for the last 50 years since their establishment in Rwanda on 17th October 1963. The relations are based on government to government bilateral technical cooperation, especially in the field of education in general and in the capacity building where Russia offers scholarships to Rwandan students. Around 800students have graduated from Russian institutes and universities over the last 50 years in areas such as law, medicine, international affairs and political science.