Putin, escorted by fighter jets, lands in Saudi Arabia for MbS talks
By Aziz El Yaakoubi and Vladimir Soldatkin
RIYADH (Reuters) -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 of the world's largest crude exporter.
Putin's meeting with MbS, as the prince is widely known, comes after oil prices fell despite a pledge by OPEC+, which groups the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) 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, his first stop.
In Abu Dhabi, President Sheikh Mohammed 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 cooperated 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 MbS 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 to meet MbS, only days after a key OPEC+ meeting was delayed, appeared hastily arranged. One source had told
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