Joe Dunford has been seeking a meeting with Gen. Valeriy Gerasimov for months. | AP Photo U.S., Russian military chiefs to meet in Azerbaijan

Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joe Dunford will meet with his Russian counterpart on Thursday in Azerbaijan, amid newly aggressive Russian military maneuvers and fresh reports that Russian intelligence officials were in contact with aides on the Trump campaign, the Pentagon announced.

Dunford has been seeking a meeting with Gen. Valeriy Gerasimov for months and told POLITICO in October that he had spoken to his counterpart by phone but both were working to arrange a face-to-face talk.


“I think it's absolutely critical that we do that,” Dunford said at the time. “I'm a believer in keeping lines of communication open no matter what. Even in the 1980s, we had a red phone, we talked to the Russians. So military-to-military communications, regardless of how difficult the relationship may be at a given time ought to be something that you can do.”

In their meeting in Baku, Dunford and Gerasimov are likely to discuss operations in Syria, where Russia is backing the Assad government in the civil war and the U.S. military is waging a campaign against the Islamic State terrorist group.

President Donald Trump has suggested the two militaries work together to fight the Islamic State. And during the presidential campaign, he expressed a desire to improve relations with Russia, and the White House has suggested it might roll back sanctions.

The two generals also likely to discuss the recent flare-up in violence in eastern Ukraine. Russian forces invaded the Crimea peninsula in 2014 and its proxies are still battling the Kiev government in eastern Ukraine despite an agreed-upon ceasefire. Calls have been rising in the U.S. Congress to provide more weapons to Ukrainian forces.

The Russian military has also stepped up its provocative actions elsewhere, including aimed at the U.S.

The New York Times reported Tuesday Moscow has deployed a new cruise missile in violation of the Intermediate Nuclear Force Treaty. Russian military aircraft buzzed a U.S. destroyer in the Black Sea last week, according to USNI. And a Russian eavesdropping vessel has been reported off the coast of Connecticut.

When he spoke to POLITICO, Dunford expressed concern about Russia's military build-up in recent years — "from the nuclear enterprise modernization to their submarine warfare capabilities to their cruise missile development to their cyber capabilities to their space programs."

"I mean, for a nation that has demographic and economic challenges like Russia they have embarked on such a significant military modernization program," Dunford said. "The degree to which it is sustainable is another discussion but you know, they have embarked and now developed and fielded and demonstrated very real military capabilities."