New Delhi: Indian and Russian officials discussed ways to expand overall defence cooperation at a two-day meeting that concluded on Wednesday, the defence ministry said.

The deliberations took place at the third meeting of the working group on military cooperation of the Indian-Russian intergovernmental commission on military and military-technical cooperation.

“The discussions focused on extending the ongoing defence engagements between the two sides and mulled new initiatives under the ambit of the existing bilateral defence cooperation mechanism,” the ministry said in a statement.

The working group meeting is a forum established to progress defence cooperation between both countries through regular talks at the strategic and operational levels between India’s integrated defence staff and the main directorate of international military cooperation of Russian defence ministry.