Putin makes rare visit to UAE, Saudi Arabia for talks
Discusses global crises, ‘strategic partnership’
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — His plane flanked by four fighter jets, President Vladimir Putin of Russia began a rare trip Wednesday to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, two oil-rich Gulf nations that have resisted pressure to take sides in the Ukraine war.
The talks touched on international crises, primarily Israel’s 2-month-old war with Hamas — a conflict that has played into Putin’s geopolitical aims by distracting Western leaders from the war in Ukraine.
The Emirati president, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, called Putin his “dear friend” at the start of their talks, and after Putin arrived in Saudi Arabia, the kingdom’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, called him a “very dear guest for the kingdom.”
“We have great opportunities in front of us in the future,” Prince Mohammed told the Russian leader in a video released by the Saudi government.
Putin told the crown prince that he had taken advantage of his invitation “to come and talk with you and with all our friends,” and insisted that their next meeting “should be in Moscow.”
Upon his arrival in the UAE capital, Abu Dhabi, his first stop on the trip, Putin was greeted with pomp.
“We see Putin in the West as a pariah, but this visit highlights that he is welcome” in other places, said Anna Borshchevskaya, a Russia specialist at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “Kremlin foreign policy priorities continue to resonate outside the West, which helps Putin to continue his war on Ukraine.”
In their meeting, Putin and Sheikh Mohammed discussed the potential to develop their countries’ relationship into a “strategic partnership,” the Emirati state news agency reported. They also talked about the war in the Gaza Strip, the need to work toward a permanent peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and developments in Ukraine, the report said.
In their opening remarks, both leaders emphasized the deepening trade and investment ties between their two countries, the Kremlin said in a statement.
Putin’s trip, announced unexpectedly by the Kremlin on Tuesday, came amid signs of eroding support in the United States for Ukraine, which is frantically trying to secure more Western aid for its effort to drive Russian forces from its territory.
Before his visit to Abu Dhabi, Putin had not traveled beyond China, Iran, and the former Soviet states since he launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
A prominent Emirati political scientist, Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, downplayed the significance of Putin’s visit for the UAE, describing it as “symbolic.”
In recent years, the UAE has designed its foreign policy around hedging against its dependency on the United States.
The Emirati leader has traveled to Russia twice over the past two years, and his country was celebrated as the guest of honor at Putin’s flagship investment forum in June.