Top U.S., Russian military officials meet in Helsinki

A high-level meeting of U.S. and Russian military officials took place in Finland on Wednesday, the Finnish Defense Forces announced in a press release.

The bilateral meeting was attended by Mark Milley, chair of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Valery Gerasimov, chief of the Russian General Staff, reported Xinhua.

The parties of the meeting will also meet the President of Finland and the Commander of the Finnish Defence Forces.

While the agenda of the meeting was not made public, Milley's spokesperson told the international media that the two officials discussed efforts to improve communications between the two nations as well as how to reduce potential risk factors.

Although the meeting was held at Finnish Government premises at Königstedt Manor in Vantaa, near Helsinki, Finland was not represented in the meeting.

A media representative for Milley was quoted by national broadcaster Yle as saying that in the meeting the talks continued aiming at "increasing communication and reducing risks."

Russian news agency TASS quoted the Russian Defence Ministry as saying that during the meeting the two sides addressed "issues of mutual interest, including reducing the risk of incidents during military activities."

"At the strategic level, this (meeting) is really significant," Petteri Kajanmaa, director of the warfare department at the Finnish National Defence University, told Finnish language newspaper Helsingin Sanomat.