RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin and his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump will hold a summit in Finland’s capital Helsinki on July 16, the Kremlin said Thursday.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders also announced the arrangement in a statement.

The two leaders will discuss bilateral relations and a range of national security issues, the White House statement read.

Details of the meeting were announced Thursday after Putin’s closed-door meeting with U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton in Moscow.

Bolton’s visit reflected “the continued desire of the Trump administration to improve relations with Russia,” Dan Mahaffee, senior vice president and director of policy at the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress, told Xinhua.

The scholar said Trump, emboldened by his “negotiating successes,” felt that he can move forward on meetings with Russia.

However, experts expect the meeting to yield little result, as the Washington-Moscow antagonism is fairly complicated.

Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Michael O’Hanlon said he does not see any specific plan or agenda for the upcoming summit between the two leaders.

Trump is set to attend the NATO Summit in Brussels on July 11-12 and then visit Britain.

He last met Putin in Vietnam on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific summit in November.

The expected Trump-Putin meeting will be held amid strained bilateral relations due to Russia’s alleged meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections, among other thorny issues.

(Xinhua)