Putin arrives in Saudi Arabia for rare foreign visit

Riyadh — Russian President Vladimir Putin landed in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday for hastily arranged talks with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on oil, Gaza and Ukraine.

It was not immediately clear what Putin, who has rarely left Russia since the start of the Ukraine war, intends to raise specifically about oil or geopolitics in a face-to-face meeting with the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud.

Putin’s meeting with the prince comes after oil prices fell despite a pledge by Opec+, which groups Opec oil producing states and allies led by Russia, to further cut output.

The Russian defence ministry showed the Kremlin chief’s Ilyushin-96 aircraft flanked by Sukhoi-35S fighter jets on its flight from Russia to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), his first stop.

In Abu Dhabi, President Sheikh Muhammad Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan welcomed his “dear friend” Putin, while UAE jets greeted him with a fly-past trailing the colours of Russia’s flag.

“Our relations, largely due to your position, have reached an unprecedentedly high level,” Putin told him. “The UAE is Russia’s main trading partner in the Arab world.”

Putin said Russia and the UAE co-operated as part of Opec+, whose members pump more than 40% of the world’s oil, adding that they would discuss the Israeli-Hamas conflict and Ukraine.

After the UAE, Putin flew to Saudi Arabia for his first face-to-face meeting with the Saudi price since October 2019. His last visit to the region was in July 2022, when he met Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Iran.

The trip appeared to have been hastily arranged. One source had told Reuters beforehand that Prince Mohammed had planned to visit Moscow.

The Russian delegation includes top oil, economy, foreign affairs, space and nuclear energy officials.

Putin is due to host his Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raisi in Moscow on Thursday.

The Kremlin said that as well as oil, Putin and the Saudi leader would talk about the war between Israel and Hamas, the situation in Syria and Yemen, and issues such as ensuring stability in the Gulf, while an aide said Ukraine would also be discussed.

The leaders, who together control one-fifth of the oil pumped each day, have long enjoyed close relations, though both have at times been ostracised by the West.

At a Group of 20 (G-20) summit in 2018, just two month after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in a Saudi consulate, Putin and the Saudi crown prince high-fived and shook hands with smiles.

The prince has sought to reassert Saudi Arabia as a regional power with less deference to the US, which supplies Riyadh with most of its weapons.

Putin, who sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022, says Russia is engaged in an existential battle with the West, and has courted allies across the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and Asia amid Western attempts to isolate Moscow.

Both the Saudis and Russia want — and need — high prices for oil, the lifeblood of their economies. The question for both, is how much of the burden each should take on to keep prices aloft — and how to verify the burden.

Last month, Opec+ delayed its meeting by several days due to disagreements over production levels. Saudi Arabia’s energy minister said Opec+ also wanted more assurances from Moscow it would make good on its pledge to reduce fuel exports.

Relations between Saudi and Russia in Opec+ have been uneasy at times and a deal on cuts almost broke down in March 2020, but the two managed to patch up their relations within weeks and Opec+ agreed to record cuts of almost 10% of global demand.

Since war broke out between Israel and Hamas in October, Putin has cast the conflict as a failure of US policy in the Middle East and has fostered ties with Arab allies and Iran, as well as with the militant Palestinian group.

Earlier this year the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Putin in relation to the forced deportation of children to Russia from Ukraine. 

Reuters