Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit the UAE and Saudi Arabia this week, Russian news outlet Shot reported on Monday, citing Putin’s aide Yury Ushakov.
The reported visit comes after the Opec+ group of oil producers, which includes all three countries, agreed on last Thursday to voluntary output cuts totalling about 2.2 million barrels a day.
The figure of 2.2 million bpd included an extension of existing Saudi and Russian voluntary cuts of 1.3 million bpd.
Shot quoted Ushakov as saying Putin would go first to UAE and then to Saudi Arabia, where negotiations would take place mainly with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud.
“I hope that these will be very useful negotiations, which we consider extremely important,” Ushakov said.
Putin has rarely travelled abroad in recent years, and mostly to states of the former Soviet Union. His last trip beyond those countries was to China in October.
Apart from cooperation in OPEC+, Putin is keen to cultivate the Gulf states as part of his drive to build global alliances with non-Western countries in order to demonstrate what he says is the failure of the United States and its allies to isolate Russia with sanctions over the war in Ukraine.