Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also said that Russia highly valued cooperation with Saudi Arabia within the framework of OPEC+ group of world’s leading oil producers.
The Kremlin said on Wednesday that it hoped President Joe Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia would not be used to try to foster anti-Russian relations, just as the United States seeks to convince Riyadh to boost oil production amid soaring prices.
The political left is floundering over what to say about the war in Ukraine.
Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro supports Russia’s Vladimir Putin, who has been his ally since 2018.
Some radicals have denounced high-profile American socialists Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders for backing the United States. Fightback, the Canadian section of the International Marxist Tendency, supports neither Ukraine nor Russia, declaring this a “reactionary war on both sides.”
The Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began on February 24, 2022, has served to accentuate ongoing differences between the United States and Europe on the one hand and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) on the other. This has, to some extent, benefited Russia’s relations with the MENA region at the expense of the United States and Europe. But the impact of the Russian invasion may eventually prove harmful to Russia’s influence in the MENA region.
For many years, substantial military operations have been conducted by mercenaries, ranging from professional soldiers hired to fight wars for European potentates in the 14th century to the combat forces of Blackwater, a private company employed by the U.S. government to undertake violent activities in the “War on Terror” of the early 21st century.
The Turkish, Iranian and Russian leaders are set to meet in Tehran next week amid lingering Turkish threats against Syrian Kurdish groups. Putin and Erdogan will separately discuss the Ukrainian grain crisis.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian leader Vladimir Putin are set to meet in Tehran next week, with Ukrainian grain exports and a potential Turkish operation in Syria likely to top the agenda.
The White House on Monday said it believes Russia is turning to Iran to provide it with “hundreds” of unmanned aerial vehicles, including weapons-capable drones, for use in its ongoing war in Ukraine.
The statement called untenable the White House’s claims that the weapons supplied to Kiev are used for defensive purposes, and denounced that they are used to destroying cities in the Donbass region and constantly attack residential areas in the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics.
The first cohort of Ukrainian soldiers, many of whom have no previous military experience, have arrived in the U.K. for combat training as the eastern European nation races to replace troops killed and wounded in the war against Russia.
The Russian ruble extended a recent slump Thursday, declining 17% against the U.S. dollar in 48 hours to reach its lowest level since late May.
The ruble hit 64.5 against the greenback during morning trading on the Moscow Exchange as the Russian authorities apparently intervened in currency markets to stop the ruble from strengthening and energy exports to Europe declined.
Russia’s top diplomat stormed out of talks with G20 foreign ministers meeting in Indonesia on Friday as Western powers criticized Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.
Washington and allies condemned Russia’s assault ahead of the meeting before Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov faced what U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called a barrage of Western criticism at the closed-door talks.