On the ninth of last March, the plane of Russian Foreign Minister "Sergey Lavrov" landed in Riyadh on a visit where he met the Saudi foreign, defense and energy ministers. The visit coincided with positive messages that the United States exchanged with Iran through indirect diplomatic channels, and it was not clear to anyone what these messages raised of concern in Saudi Arabia, which is facing alone now direct threats from Houthi missiles and drones that constantly penetrate its airspace, and is afraid of renewed The US-Iranian agreement focused on curbing the nuclear program without considering the roles played by Iran's military allies in the region. Therefore, Riyadh has come to view the Russians, the classic American opponent in terms of military and intelligence, as an important card in the framework of the quarrel with Washington and the search for new international alliances.

Over the past decades, a limited terrorist attack near Saudi oil facilities would have raised the level of readiness of the American forces in the Gulf to the maximum extent, so that the largest military force in the world could secure its oil supplies. However, the diminishing importance of Gulf oil over the past decade has changed a lot in the US strategy. The targeting of Saudi sites and oil installations in the east of the kingdom now passes without US deterrent steps against the actors. However, that security vacuum, like other vacuums left by Washington in the midst of its preoccupation with the Pacific Ocean and its competition with China, attracted the Kremlin's attention to play a role that no one could imagine playing a few years ago in a region that has long been considered an American par excellence.

When the Aramco attacks occurred in September 2019, Russian President Vladimir Putin did not wait for long, but went to Saudi Arabia to offer Russian weapons to the kingdom in order to protect its infrastructure from any attacks and to provide aid through anti-aircraft defense systems, a call that appears to be Riyadh decided to respond to it politically in light of the calm tension and attraction with the new Biden administration, which is determined not to have its partnership with Saudi Arabia without conditions. As Corrie Shake, director of defense and foreign policies at the American Enterprise Institute, says: “If I were the Saudis, I would take a road to Moscow, and another to Beijing, in search of a more reliable partner than the United States.” It seems that this is what Riyadh is doing. exactly. [1]

The timing of Lavrov's recent visit carried several messages. Russia, which is intensifying its diplomacy today to enhance its regional role, is looking for an opportunity to have enough papers and strings with it to become more capable of leading regional politics, as it did with Turkey in Syria despite the apparent dissonance between the two countries. Then Lavrov rushed to the Kingdom condemning the recent attack on Saudi oil installations in Ras Tanura, in the east of the country, and talking about the Houthi attacks and the importance of stopping the war in Yemen during the conference held with his Saudi counterpart Faisal bin Farhan, at a moment when the Americans seemed less concerned with the security of the kingdom since when. Just as it did with Ankara, Moscow appears to be on its way to knocking on the doors of a new American ally whose relations with Washington have dried up, but it is an attempt against the backdrop of a complex history of relations.

The Soviet Union preceded the world when it decided to be the first country to recognize the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1926, and then went on to deepen its political relations with the Kingdom by raising the level of its diplomatic representation on Saudi soil, transforming its consulate in Jeddah into an embassy that represents it after four years of this recognition. However, the relationship between the newly formed kingdom with the world of oil and the victorious international pole in World War II deteriorated during the Cold War, as the conservative kingdom followed the path of alliance with the West against the Soviet Union and stood in the face of its communist ideology. Not only did the Saudis stand with the West, but they also armed the Afghan mujahideen who fought the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s and obtained their primary financial financing from Saudi oil revenues.After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, relations between Saudi Arabia and Russia continued below the level, but this did not prevent the two countries from agreeing on certain international positions, such as their semi-permanent vote in favor of the Palestinian cause at the United Nations.

Putin's visit to Saudi Arabia in 2007, as the first Russian president to set foot in Saudi Arabia, was a focal point in the relationship between the two countries.

Putin's meetings were repeated with the leaders of Saudi Arabia, so he held another meeting on the sidelines of the "Group of Twenty" summit to which the two countries belong in 2008, and then Putin met King Salman at the G20 summit also in 2015. In turn, the mutual interests between the two countries deepened in an unprecedented way. The rapprochement culminated with the first visit to Moscow by a Saudi monarch in the history of the two countries when King Salman visited Moscow in 2017, and he was received in the luxurious St. Andrew Hall in the Kremlin against the backdrop of a huge military parade during which the Russian orchestra was played.

King Salman's visit to Moscow in 2017

During that visit, new starting points were set in relations between the two countries, as the two countries signed preliminary agreements to buy Saudi Arabia the Russian S-400 air defense system and guided anti-tank missile systems, in addition to 15 agreements between the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and the Saudi Public Investment Fund. (PIF) worth more than one billion dollars, in addition to launching projects in various fields, such as energy and petrochemicals. The two major energy poles also discussed the horizon of cooperation with regard to global oil prices, until after 2016 oil was the focus of the two countries' relations, and it was also a major reason for their dissonance of interests on more than one occasion, after the two countries launched an oil war against each other that led to the largest drop in oil prices About two decades ago. (2)

Accompanied by a large trade, security and military delegation, Putin returned again in 2019, more than a decade after his first visit to Riyadh, where the two countries negotiated again to purchase and deploy the S-400 air defense system. On that visit, it was announced that more than twenty agreements amounting to more than two billion dollars had been signed, the most prominent of which was an agreement by Saudi Aramco under which it bought 30% of the shares of the Russian "Novomet" for oil equipment. The volume of bilateral trade between the two countries at that time was more than $ 1.6 billion, and this included the first Russian shipment of wheat to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which amounted to 60,000 tons, followed by another shipment of the same size, what analysts considered an override of the tension that prevailed in relations between the two countries as a result of the oil price war. .

On October 13, 2019, US President Donald Trump announced the decision to withdraw about a thousand American soldiers present along the Turkish-Syrian border, according to an implicit understanding allowing Turkey to launch a cross-border attack to establish a "safe zone" 32 kilometers deep free of the YPG forces Kurdish, Washington's main ally in the current Syrian battle. The American betrayal of the Kurds was not a message for them alone, but rather it sent dangerous messages to other allies of Washington, the first of which is Saudi Arabia. On the eve of the implementation of that American withdrawal, Russian President Putin was on his visit to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, presenting the Saudis with Russian defense systems capable of enhancing their security in the face of increasing threats.The news of the American withdrawal from Syria was an opportunity for the Russian president, who took advantage of Riyadh's concern about the fading of the American commitment. After he showed his country's willingness to provide assistance to the Kingdom through the latest Russian air defense system, he declared that the Russian weapon can protect the Saudi infrastructure from any future attacks.

There is a series of events that have aroused Riyadh's fear and prompted it to discuss the option of diversifying partnerships with several allies far from the West as a first option, and this dates back to 2011, the year of the Arab uprisings, which revealed what the Saudis and all Gulf states considered to be a rapid abandonment by Washington and the West of important allies such as Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The most painful transformation for Riyadh was the signing of former US President Barack Obama to the Iran nuclear deal in 2015, which left a deep wound in the US-Saudi relationship. In addition to this, the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi officials in October 2018, which confirmed to Riyadh that the US administration could not prevent the voices calling for accountability of all officials, including the crown prince himself. [3]

In contrast to the United States, and in the same period, the Russians continued to protect their allies, most notably the Assad regime in Syria, turning a blind eye to the degree of brutal oppression of their people, and naturally free from any legal or moral restrictions, thus presenting an attractive model for the undemocratic regimes that plague the region.

Indeed, President Putin was the only one who paid a warm greeting to the Saudi crown prince at the G20 summit that was held two months after Khashoggi's killing, while Western leaders chose to avoid him in front of the cameras even for a while, despite their actual continued relations with Saudi Arabia.

On February 13, White House spokeswoman Jane Psaki stood on the podium to deliver her daily statement to reporters regarding the new US administration’s relationship with Saudi Arabia, and Psaki said: “It is clear that there is a review of our policy towards Saudi Arabia, and there is no planned call. With the Saudi crown prince, I am aware of it. "

The previous statement did not alone herald a tougher approach by a new US president, describing Saudi Arabia during his candidacy for elections as a "pariah"; There are decisions Biden made in fulfillment of his electoral promises that signaled an era in which Riyadh would not enjoy the same privileges it had under the Trump administration, chief among them the decisions taken by Washington regarding the war in Yemen, such as the decision to appoint an envoy to push for a diplomatic solution, and the previous freeze on sales. Temporarily transferring weapons to Riyadh, ending US support for military operations there, and opening communication channels with the Houthis. Also, the US administration did not hesitate to declassify the CIA report on February 25, which pointed the finger directly at the Saudi crown prince of involvement in Khashoggi's assassination.Just two days after the American spokeswoman's statement, officials in Saudi Arabia were looking for alternatives to confront the winds coming from the White House, and as usual, Moscow was present, so that a phone call could not be ignored the significance of his timing between the Saudi Crown Prince and Russian President Putin.

There are several files with which Moscow can promote the position of the Saudis, the most important of which is satisfying Riyadh's appetite for buying weapons and its desire to acquire the "S-400" system. Riyadh learned the feasibility of military cooperation with the Russians in the fall of 2017, during King Salman's visit to Moscow, during which he purchased the TOS-1A Solntsepyok multiple launch system and agreed to purchase and manufacture the Kornet-EM anti-tank missile system and launchers. AGS-30 grenades. In parallel with the complexity of the military relations between Riyadh and Washington, these deals indicate the possibility of a shift eastward in the structure of the Saudi military arsenal, especially with explicit Russian proposals to sponsor the security infrastructure for the Gulf region.

In the end, and in light of Russia’s endeavor to take advantage of the current situation to strengthen its relationship and strengthen its positions with Riyadh in order to turn it into an important player in a region that has been immune from Russian influence for nearly half a century, it can be said that the Russian-Saudi relations may witness new dimensions during the next four years, against a backdrop of coldness. Relations between Riyadh and Washington. It is true that relations between the two old allies are unlikely to deteriorate to the point of replacing the Americans in favor of the Russians overnight, but the Saudis' rapprochement with the Russians now means that Moscow is taking its first steps towards the entrenched American security architecture in the Gulf states. But given that Washington's courtship of Iran was the main driver of the complexity of its relations with Riyadh, the close alliance between Moscow and Tehran in the Syrian war arena means that any strategic partnership of Riyadh with Moscow will not be less complicated in any way.In the end, the Saudis do not need a solid alliance with Moscow, they are only switching their cards and diversifying their military arsenal in light of an unprecedented state of liquidity and instability in the history of the Gulf region.

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Sources

  • After Saudi attacks, Russia makes its regional presence felt

  • Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's remarks and answers to media questions at a news conference following talks with Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, Riyadh, March 10, 2021

  • Saudi Arabia warms to Russia's embrace