MOSCOW. April 9 (Interfax-AVN) - Colonel-General Igor Sergun, the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) of the Russian General Staff, will speak at a conference on international security scheduled to be held in Moscow on April 16-17, Sergei Koshelev, the head of the Russian Defense Ministry's Main Department on International Military Cooperation, told reporters on Thursday.
"We have offered Lieutenant-General Andrei Kartapolov, the head of the Main Operative Directorate, to speak. Colonel-General Igor Sergun, the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate, will give a speech," Koshelev said.
Koshelev said the special thing about the upcoming conference will be that high-ranking officials from the Russian Defense Ministry will state their viewpoints.
"This viewpoint sometimes differs from the materials and estimations that exist in the press and are sometimes called that of the Defense Ministry. That is, the officials will give their estimations and will make it clear what the Russian Federation thinks, plans and how it will react to specific threats and challenges to national security," Koshelev said.
The international security conference, which is organized by the Russian Defense Ministry, will be held in Moscow for the fourth time. Among the people invited to the forum are officials from the defense ministries of eighty countries, including 15 defense ministers, leading experts of international organizations and representatives of NGOs and academic organizations.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, the head of the Russian General Staff, will speak at the plenary session on April 16-17. They will state their views on key global security threats and the possible areas of international cooperation to fight these threats.