Putin refuses meeting with Libyan leader during official visit

A spokesperson for the president said that Putin had not scheduled any meetings with Sarraj during his visit to Moscow on Thursday and Friday.

A press release said Russia wanted an "early restoration of strong power in Libya" - potentially a reference to the military strongman, General Khalifa Haftar, Putin's preferred choice for Libyan leader.

"Russia would like Libya to once again become a full-fledged state after a barbarous foreign interference in this its internal affairs," said spokesperson Dmitry Peskov.

The Kremlin reportedly approved a $2 billion arms deal with Haftar on a Russian aircraft carrier off the coast of Libya in January.

Russia was one of the main suppliers of weapons to the regime of formed Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi.

The dictator who was overthrown and brutally killed during a popular uprising in 2011 was provided with more than 2,000 tanks, 2,000 armoured fighting vehicles, 350 artillery weapons, dozens of ships and fleets of aircraft by the Russians.

Libya is roughly split into two halves, with west Libya controlled by the UN-backed GNA and east Libya largely under the control of General Haftar's Libyan National Army (LNA), while a number of militias act in between.

Haftar has publicly rejected the UN-backed GNA, which is supported by western states including the EU and the US.

He announced that he intended to capture Tripoli from al-Sarraj's GNA late last year and has recently attacked numerous positions of armed factions linked to the UN-backed government.

Sarraj survived an assassination attempt on February 20.