PREVIEW - 15th Annual Valdai Club Meeting With Focus On Russia's Future Starts In Sochi Monday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 15th October, 2018) The Russian city of Sochi will host the 15th Annual Meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club, which will gather lawmakers and world-renowned experts to discuss the topic of "Russia: Agenda for the 21st Century," specifically, the country's prospects for socio-cultural and political development and its place in the emerging world.

The four-day forum, set to start on Monday, will include ten sessions that will touch on the meeting's overarching theme. Participants will also be privy to a number of meetings with individual speakers, including the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Chairman of the board of the Eurasian Economic Commission,Tigran Sargsyan and Russian Deputy Prime Minister Maxim Akimov.

Panel sessions will expand on themes such as "Living in a Crumbling World," "Tradition and Future: National Identity in a Changing World" and "Economics for a New Development Philosophy." Special sessions, running throughout the duration of the annual meeting, will focus on Russian involvement in the middle East, the shift of Russia to the East and the country's involvement in Eurasia, and Russia's military capabilities, particularly in Syria.

Notable speakers at the sessions include the Mongolian Minister of Foreign Affairs Damdin Tsogtbaatar, Yonov Frederick Agah, the deputy director-general of the World Trade Organization, and Lassina Zerbo, the executive secretary of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is also set to make a speech at the annual meeting.

Within the framework of the annual meeting, participants are invited to the Valdai Discussion Club Award Ceremony on Monday, during which individual authors or a collective of experts will be awarded for a significant contribution to the understanding and explanation of changes and tendencies in global politics.

In 2017, Vitaly Naumkin, the Russian unofficial adviser to UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura, and a Russian academy of Sciences academic, was given the award for his work on reaching a settlement in Syria.

The Valdai Discussion Club was established in 2004. Over the years of its operation, the Club's meetings have been attended by more than 1,000 representatives of the international expert community from 63 nations.

The Club aims to promote political dialogue in order to strengthen peaceful conflict resolution, and provide analysis of economic and social developments globally.