Israeli Prime Minister Bejamin Netanyahu will travel to Moscow of Thursday for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
A statement from Netanyahu’s office Tuesday did not disclose the details of their talks.
The two leaders will meet five days before Israel’s April 9 election in which the right-wing Netanyahu faces a strong challenge from a centrist candidate.
The meeting could help the premier in the closely contested election, in which he has played up his statecraft and security credentials in the face of the politically untested challenger Benny Gantz, a former military chief.
On Monday, Netanyahu told reporters he and Putin spoke by telephone about Syria, whose Russian-backed president, Bashar Assad, has been gaining ground in an eight-year war.
Israel worries Assad’s Iranian and Lebanese Hezbollah reinforcements could set up bases to attack it from Syria, and has carried out scores of air strikes against them.
Netanyahu has met with Putin three times over the past year, most recently in February, to discuss military coordination between Russia and Israel in Syria.
Israel and Russia maintain a hotline to prevent their air forces from clashing over Syria. Syrian forces downed a Russian warplane in September while responding to an Israeli air strike.
