Russian President Vladimir Putin is visiting the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and also plans to go to Saudi Arabia. This doesn’t happen often.
Mr Putin is going to talk with the president of the UAE about the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, and also about oil production.
The UAE is holding a big meeting about the environment, but we don’t know yet if Mr Putin will be there.
He has hardly been out of Russia since March, when the International Criminal Court (ICC) ordered for his arrest.
The ICC says he sent Ukrainian children to Russia illegally, which is a crime in war. But the UAE and Saudi Arabia don’t agree with the court.
The Russian leader has ignored other recent meetings with other countries, like the Brics summit in South Africa in August and the G20 summit in India in September.
Russia wants to show its power and try to weaken the West’s efforts to separate it.
Mr Putin told the President of the UAE that our relationship has never been better.
The UAE is an important economic partner to Russia in the Arab world. They will talk about trade and oil.
The President of Russia is going to Saudi Arabia on Wednesday to meet with the country’s leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
The two leaders will talk about how to make the fighting between Israel and Hamas stop, the Kremlin said.
“Yuri Ushakov, a Russian presidential assistant, said that they will talk about the problems in Syria, Yemen, and Sudan in both the UAE and Saudi Arabia. ”
The Kremlin said Mr. Putin will meet with President Raisi to talk about the Gaza war.
Since February 2022, Mr Putin has only traveled to Ukraine (which Russia controls), Iran and China.