Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Uzbekistan early on Thursday afternoon, a schedule distributed by the Russian delegation to media showed.

The two leaders are in Samarkand to attend a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, a regional security group. They will also hold a three-way meeting with Mongolian President Ukhnaa Khurelsukh.

Separately, the Uzbek government said Putin was travelling to Samarkand and would also meet Iranian, Kyrgyz, Pakistani, Turkmen and Uzbek leaders.

On Friday, Putin is set to meet the leaders of Azerbaijan, India and Turkey, it added in a statement.

Meanwhile the Russian and Chinese navies are holding joint patrols in the Pacific Ocean, the Russian defence ministry said, deepening military and diplomatic ties between Moscow and Beijing when their relations with the West have soured.

A ministry statement on Telegram said crews from both sides were conducting joint tactical maneuvers and carrying out exercises involving artillery and helicopters.

“The tasks of the patrols involve the strengthening of naval cooperation between Russia and China, upholding peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region, coastal monitoring and safeguarding Russian and Chinese nautical economic sites,” it said.

The deepening “no limits” partnership between the rising superpower of China and the natural resources titan of Russia is a geopolitical development the West is watching with anxiety.

Russia and China warships conducted their first joint patrols of the western Pacific Ocean in October last year, a move closely monitor by Japan who called the maneuvers as “unusual.”