Russian PM Vladimir Putin's Saturday's visit to Bulgaria is his third in his capacity of a Russian state leader, even though he made the first two as the President of the Russian Federation.

Putin first visited Bulgaria as a state leader on March 1-3, 2003, for the celebrations of the 125th year since the Russian-Turkish War of 1877-1878, which liberated Bulgaria from the Ottoman Turkish Empire.

On January 17-18, 2008, shortly before he stepped down and transferred the Russian Presidency to Dmitry Medvedev, Putin made his "historic" visit to Sofia, during which Bulgaria and Russia signed intergovernmental agreements for the three controversial large scale energy projects – the South Stream gas transit pipeline, the Belene Nuclear Power Plant, and the Burgas-Alexandroupolis oil pipeline.

At the time, the agreement's were hailed by Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov as "scoring a grand slam" and by the Cabinet of Socialist leader Sergey Stanishev; both Parvanov and Stanishev have been known for being pro-Russian.

Putin's visit on November 13, 2010, is his first as Prime Minister of Russia. It is also his second visit in that capacity with the new Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov, after their meeting in Gdansk in September 2009, which was not well-regarded in Moscow.

Putin and Borisov also met during the former's visit to Sofia in January 2008 even though they did not hold talks since at the time Borisov was only the Mayor of Sofia.

All in all, in the period 2003-2010, Vladimir Putin, as President and then as Prime Minister of the Russian Federation had a total of 10 meetings (counting Saturday's) in Sofia, Moscow, Athens, Zagreb, and Gdansk with the respective Bulgarian state leaders – President Georgi Parvanov (9 meetings), former Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev (9 meetings), and current Prime Minister Borisov (two meetings counting Saturday's).

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