Presidents of Russia, UAE discuss bilateral cooperation, regional developments over phone

United Arab Emirates (UAE) President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan held a phone conversation on late Saturday with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on bilateral cooperation and regional developments, reported Xinhua, quoting the UAE's official WAM news agency on Sunday.

The discussions focused on strengthening cooperation in support of mutual development and shared interests, WAM reported.

The two sides also exchanged views on a range of "regional developments and efforts aimed at supporting security and stability through dialogue and peaceful solutions," it reported.

Meanwhile, a statement released Sunday by the Kremlin said that during the phone conversation, Putin thanked the UAE president for ensuring effective cooperation between the two countries' security agencies, and for the UAE's assistance in detaining one of the two suspects over an attempted assassination of Russian senior military official Vladimir Alekseyev.

Russia's Federal Security Service announced earlier on Sunday that it had detained two suspects over the attempted assassination of Alekseyev in Moscow on Friday, a deputy chief of Russia's military intelligence agency.

It said one suspect, believed to be the shooter, was detained in Dubai with assistance from partners in the UAE and handed over to Russian authorities.

The phone conversation followed the second round of U.S.-brokered talks between Russia and Ukraine in Abu Dhabi from Wednesday to Thursday, with both sides agreeing to a large-scale prisoner exchange but failing to achieve substantive breakthroughs on core issues such as territorial arrangements and a ceasefire.