Russian President Vladimir Putin said that a planned visit by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman to Russia had been changed at the last minute, prompting the Kremlin chief to visit Riyadh for talks with the leader of the world’s biggest oil exporter.
Mystery surrounds Putin’s hastily arranged trip to the Middle East, on which he was escorted by Russian fighter jets, and it was not immediately clear what was so important for the Kremlin chief to make a rare trip outside Russia.
“We awaited you in Moscow,” Putin told the crown prince, known as MBS, in Riyadh with a smile.
Photo: SPA, by AFP
“I know that events forced a correction to those plans but as I have already said nothing can prevent the development of our friendly relations,” Putin said.
Putin then told MBS: “But the next meeting should be in Moscow.”
The crown prince said through a Russian translator that he was of course ready to do that.
“Then we are agreed,” Putin said.
MBS praised joint coordination between the two countries “that helped remove tensions in Middle East,” the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) said.
He said that the two countries shared many interests and said they were working for the benefit of Russia, the Kingdom and the entire Middle East and wider world.
Putin’s meeting with MBS came after oil prices fell despite a pledge by OPEC+, which groups the OPEC and allies led by Russia, to further cut output.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said after the talks that cooperation would continue within OPEC+, but there were no specifics about the visit.
The Russian Ministry of Defense had earlier shown the Kremlin chief’s Ilyushin-96 aircraft flanked by Sukhoi-35S fighter jets on its flight from Russia to the United Arab Emirates, Putin’s first stop on the trip.
In other news, Russia’s upper house of parliament yesterday voted to set the date for the presidential election for March 17 next year.
The decision was passed unanimously by 162 votes in the Russian Federation Council.
“With this decision, we are effectively launching the start of the election campaign,” council chairman Valentina Matviyenko said.
She added that for the first time residents of the parts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions of Ukraine annexed by Russia would take part in the vote.
“By choosing a head of state together, we fully share the common responsibility and common destiny of our fatherland,” Matviyenko said.
Putin has not yet officially announced his intention to run for a new six-year presidential term.
Malaysia yesterday installed a motorcycle-riding billionaire sultan as its new king in lavish ceremonies for a post seen as a ballast in times of political crises. The coronation ceremony for Malaysia’s King Sultan Ibrahim, 65, at the National Palace in Kuala Lumpur followed his oath-taking in January as the country’s 17th monarch. Malaysia is a constitutional monarchy, with a unique arrangement that sees the throne change hands every five years between the rulers of nine Malaysian states headed by centuries-old Islamic royalty. While chiefly ceremonial, the position of king has in the past few years played an increasingly important role. Royal intervention was
X-37B COMPARISON: China’s spaceplane is most likely testing technology, much like US’ vehicle, said Victoria Samson, an official at the Secure World Foundation China’s shadowy, uncrewed reusable spacecraft, which launches atop a rocket booster and lands at a secretive military airfield, is most likely testing technology, but could also be used for manipulating or retrieving satellites, experts said. The spacecraft, on its third mission, was last month observed releasing an object, moving several kilometers away and then maneuvering back to within a few hundred meters of it. “It’s obvious that it has a military application, including, for example, closely inspecting objects of the enemy or disabling them, but it also has non-military applications,” said Marco Langbroek, a lecturer in optical space situational awareness at Delft
The Philippine Air Force must ramp up pilot training if it is to buy 20 or more multirole fighter jets as it modernizes and expands joint operations with its navy, a commander said yesterday. A day earlier US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that the US “will do what is necessary” to see that the Philippines is able to resupply a ship on the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) that Manila uses to reinforce its claims to the atoll. Sullivan said the US would prefer that the Philippines conducts the resupplies of the small crew on the warship Sierra Madre,
AIRLINES RECOVERING: Two-thirds of the flights canceled on Saturday due to the faulty CrowdStrike update that hit 8.5 million devices worldwide occurred in the US As the world continues to recover from massive business and travel disruptions caused by a faulty software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, malicious actors are trying to exploit the situation for their own gain. Government cybersecurity agencies across the globe and CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz are warning businesses and individuals around the world about new phishing schemes that involve malicious actors posing as CrowdStrike employees or other tech specialists offering to assist those recovering from the outage. “We know that adversaries and bad actors will try to exploit events like this,” Kurtz said in a statement. “I encourage everyone to remain vigilant