Vladimir Putin to visit UAE, Saudi Arabia this week

This week, Russian President Vladimir Putin will go to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, according to a Monday report from the Russian news outlet Shot, which quoted Putin’s assistant Yury Ushakov.

The three nations that make up the OPEC+ group of oil producers decided last Thursday to voluntarily reduce their output by a total of roughly 2.2 million barrels per day. This is when the claimed visit took place.

Because of uncertainties regarding the extent to which the voluntary cuts would be carried out, markets responded to the agreement with cynicism. Following the statement last Friday, oil prices dropped by 2%, and they continued to fall on Monday. As of 1709 GMT, Brent crude was down around 0.6% at $78.45.

The 2.2 million bpd amount included a 1.3 million bpd voluntary cut from Saudi Arabia and Russia.

According to a remark from Shot, Ushakov stated that Putin would first travel to the United Arab Emirates and then Saudi Arabia, where talks would primarily involve Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

“I hope that these will be very useful negotiations, which we consider extremely important,” Ushakov stated.

Putin has not been overseas very often in recent years, and when he has, it has been largely to former Soviet states. In October, he made his most recent journey outside of those nations, to China.

In addition to working with OPEC+, Putin is eager to develop ties with the Gulf states as part of his efforts to form international alliances with non-Western nations and show that the US and its allies have failed to isolate Russia due to the conflict in Ukraine.

In March, Putin’s ability to travel overseas was curtailed due to an arrest order issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the war crime of deporting Ukrainian children to Russia. Russia refuted the accusation and referred to the action as absurd, claiming that it was illegal in any event because Russia is not an ICC member.

Putin can visit both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates without worrying about being detained in accordance with the ICC warrant because neither nation is a member of the court.

(With agency inputs)