Russian President Vladimir Putin will travel to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, visits notably devoted to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and oil, the Kremlin announced on Tuesday.
“President Putin's working visits to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia will take place tomorrow. All this will take place in a single day,” Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
According to him, Mr. Putin will address during this visit “bilateral relations”, “the international agenda”, “the Israeli-Palestinian conflict”, as well as the reduction in oil production within the framework of OPEC+, the Russia is a member.
The Kremlin has not indicated whether the Russian president will attend COP28, the international climate conference currently taking place in the Emirates.
The Russian leader, targeted since March by an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for the “deportation” of Ukrainian children, has until now limited his travel abroad. For example, he was absent from the last G20 and BRICS summits.
In October, however, he was received by his ally Xi Jinping in China, on the sidelines of the New Silk Roads forum.
A few days earlier, he had traveled to Kyrgyzstan, another country allied with Moscow, for his first trip abroad since the arrest warrant was issued by the ICC.
The Russian president, whom the West is trying to make a pariah because of the conflict in Ukraine, explained in early October that he avoided international summits so as not to “cause problems” for the organizers.
