Putin will visit United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia
Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia on Wednesday before hosting Iran's president in Moscow on Thursday, continuing his return to the international stage despite Western attempts to isolate him since the offensive in Ukraine.
Considered a pariah by Western countries and the subject of an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for the "deportation" of Ukrainian children, Putin decided to reserve one of his few foreign trips for his closest allies.
"President Putin's working visits to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia will take place tomorrow [Wednesday]. All this will take place in one day," Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
Putin has been absent from recent major international meetings: the G20 summit in India in September and the BRICS summit in South Africa in August.
He explained at the time that he avoided these meetings so as not to "cause a problem" for the organisers.
According to the Kremlin, Putin will meet with President Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan in the UAE to discuss cooperation and the situation in the Middle East.
In Riyadh, he will be received by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to discuss trade, investment and international policy.
Peskov confirmed that the Russian president will discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as well as reductions in oil production within the framework of the OPEC+ alliance of which Russia is a member.
Putin has been critical of Israel since the start of the war with Hamas, denouncing the humanitarian "catastrophe" in Gaza and calling for the creation of a Palestinian state.
Following his visit to the Middle East, Vladimir Putin will host Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Russia on Thursday. "There will be Russian-Iranian talks on December 7," the Kremlin spokesman said.
According to the official Iranian news agency Irna, "the situation in Gaza", among other things, will be discussed.
Western countries accuse Iran of involvement in the Russian war effort by supplying it with large quantities of explosive Shahed drones and other weapons, which Russia uses to carry out its bombing campaign of Ukrainian cities.
