Russian PM Mishustin visits Vietnam to deepen ties

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin arrived in Vietnam Tuesday for a two-day visit aimed at deepening ties between the two long-standing allies as Moscow's isolation over the war in Ukraine grows.

The trip comes half a year after President Vladimir Putin travelled to Hanoi, where Vietnam's then-president To Lam indicated a desire to boost defence cooperation with Moscow, its main arms supplier for decades.

Mishustin was on Tuesday scheduled to meet Lam -- now Communist Party general secretary and the country's top leader -- as well as Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh.

They are expected to discuss "important cooperation projects in the fields of energy and industry... creating momentum to promote relations between Vietnam and Russia," the Vietnamese government's official newspaper said Tuesday.

On Monday Alexey Likhachev, general director of Russia's nuclear giant Rosatom, was in Hanoi, where he said he was ready to help Vietnam build nuclear power plants, according to the Vietnamese government.

Vietnam wants to restart nuclear power plans to meet its rapidly expanding energy needs.

Russia has been Vietnam's main arms supplier for decades, accounting for more than 80 percent of imports between 1995 and 2023, but orders have dropped off in recent years as international sanctions related to the Ukraine conflict have intensified.

No defence deals were announced during Putin's visit in June, but the two sides said in a joint statement that their defence and security cooperation was "not directed against any third country" and contributed to "peace, stability and sustainable development" in the region.

Putin told reporters during the visit, which came as Western powers stepped up sanctions aimed at constraining Russia's war in Ukraine, that both sides had "identical or very close" positions on key international issues.

The two nations have been close allies since the days of the Cold War.