Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke on the phone Thursday.
The leaders discussed “a number of subjects, foremost among them regional matters from a security and diplomatic perspective,” the Prime Minister’s Office said.
Bennett also wished Putin a happy 69th birthday.
Last month, Bennett accepted an invitation from Putin to meet with him in Moscow, but no date has been set.
Putin and Bennett spoke a day after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met with his Iranian counterpart, Hossein Amirabdollahian, in Moscow. Russia strongly supports reinstating the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, but the new government in Tehran has been noncommittal about returning to talks. Negotiations would resume “soon,” Amirabdollahian said at a press conference with Lavrov.
There have also been tensions in the deconfliction mechanism between Israel and Russia in Syria, where the Russian Army maintains a presence. Israel attacks Iranian targets in Syria that could try to establish themselves on Israel’s northern border or transfer weapons to Hezbollah.
In August, the Russian military in Syria said its air-defense systems had shot down 22 of 24 missiles launched by Israel into Syria. Two weeks later, a Russian-made missile launched from Syria landed in central Israel.