Putin and Xi will meet in Samarkand today.

A schedule provided to the media by the Russian delegation showed that Russian President Vladimir Putin will have a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping early on Thursday afternoon in Uzbekistan.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a regional security organisation, is holding a meeting in Samarkand while the two leaders are there. A three-way meeting will also be held with President Ukhnaa Khurelsukh of Mongolia.

Separately, the Uzbek government announced that Putin would visit Samarkand and meet with the leaders of Pakistan, Iran, the Kyrgyz Republic, Turkmenistan, and the Uzbek Republic.

Putin will meet with the presidents of Azerbaijan, India, and Turkey on Friday, the statement stated.At their meeting, which the Kremlin claims would be of “particular significance” given the geopolitical context, Putin and Xi intend to talk about Taiwan and Ukraine.

Just a month before he is scheduled to solidify his position as the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong, Xi has left China for the first time in more than two years in order to go this week to Central Asia where he will meet Putin.

With the SCO, Beijing and Moscow may reach out to nations that make up half of the world’s population, which is a geopolitical development that the West is anxiously observing.