![]() MBS knows the optics of being seen to help out Putin, but he doesn’t care. Don’t write off carbon as a political tool for decades. ![]() “The Saudis sit on a very powerful asset in oil, which still has a strategic role to play. “Putin sees this as new world order stuff, and thinks he can bring MBS along with him,” said the British official. ![]() Biden had also led the push to sideline Prince Mohammed, who had taken pleasure in a US leader traveling to Jeddah with cap in hand and leaving empty-handed. His crackdown on dissent has strong echoes of the Russian leader and so does the nascent emergence of a Saudi police state – built on Arab nationalist foundations and secured by controlling dissenters, co-opting oligarchs and consolidating a power base.īoth men have been further united in recent months by their dislike of Biden, whose administration has led the push to arm the Ukrainian military and forced the Russian army into a series of humiliating retreats. In the years since, Prince Mohammed has come to emulate the man he studied. “He was fascinated by him,” one of the Britons told the Observer several years later. The sole purpose of the meeting was to seek the UK’s advice on how to deal with Putin. In 2016, when Prince Mohammed was still deputy defence minister, the then 30-year-old summoned British diplomats, among them senior MI6 officers, to Riyadh. There have, in fact, been frequent signs that he would like to emulate the veteran Russian tyrant, with a blood and oil nationalism of his own. Prince Mohammed seems unperturbed by Putin’s recommitment to blood and soil nationalism and a bid to reclaim the lost glories of the Soviet Union. Widespread destruction and humanitarian suffering in Ukraine, meanwhile, have not been a focus of Saudi discourse. NGOs warned this week that the non-renewal of a ceasefire in Yemen would exacerbate the suffering of millions. Saudi officials have not condemned Putin’s invasion, and nor has Moscow weighed into Saudi Arabia’s invasion of Yemen over the past five years – a war that has left its neighbour impoverished and in ongoing need of significant aid. His attempts to position the kingdom as a regional power and global mover are among the 37-year-old’s core goals. “Putin wanted it to happen, and he wanted it to seem as though the Saudis had achieved this through diplomacy.”Īfter four years of global fallout from the assassination of the Saudi dissident and journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Prince Mohammed’s security aides in Istanbul, the heir to the Saudi throne is in the midst of a global comeback. “This was a gift from Putin to MBS,” said a British official familiar with the political dynamics. The optics were stark, and appeared sanctioned by Putin to give Riyadh a moment on a world stage here were Saudi diplomats a long way from home brokering a deal that had nothing obvious to do with the Middle East. Not this time.”Īnother sign of a deepening bond between Moscow and Riyadh emerged last month when, in a rare moment of global diplomacy, Saudi diplomats secured the release of international prisoners, including five Britons, captured during fighting inside Ukraine. “Saudi has pretty much always done what it wanted in oil regardless of favours to the US but it usually sugar-coated it. “Previous Saudi administrations would have been much more sensitive to the US’s feelings and to messaging, even though they would likely do the same thing,” said Robin Mills, the chief executive of Qamar Energy. Perhaps more importantly for the US president, a rise in oil prices could be seen as helping fund Putin’s war effort.Ġ0:24 Joe Biden fist bumps Mohammed bin Salman during visit to Saudi Arabia – video Biden walked away empty-handed and, as a result, faces the uncomfortable prospect of taking high bowser prices to midterm elections. Instead, Joe Biden finds himself staring down a partner in the Middle East whom he had personally visited during the summer as the extent of the supply crisis became apparent. It would also alienate Washington, an ally that has tried to recruit Riyadh to the cause of decreasing supply pressures by opening valves to its enormous reservoirs. Such a move would follow widespread disruption to gas supplies to Europe caused by the war and predictions of a worsening energy security crisis as the northern winter approaches. Both countries are likely to seek to raise oil prices by cutting global supply by 1-2m barrels a day. An Opec+ meeting in Vienna on Wednesday is the latest landmark in a growing relationship that is increasingly defying the demands of Riyadh’s allies and appearing to give Putin comfort at a critical juncture in the war.
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