Vladimir Putin wanted everybody to know he was arriving.
Flanked by four Russian fighter jets, the Kremlin leader completed a high-profile trip to the Middle East this week, visiting the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
And for good measure, after returning home to Moscow, Putin then hosted Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in the Kremlin.
Putin’s frantic week of Middle East diplomacy was carefully choreographed to show that while he may be a pariah in the West after his illegal invasion of Ukraine and indictments for war crimes, he is more than welcome elsewhere, particularly in the Global South.
And it was also calibrated to make clear that Russia still considers itself a player in this volatile region as the Israel-Hamas war continues to rage.
So what is Putin’s game in the Middle East as the region’s politics scramble? And what does this all mean for the ongoing war in Ukraine as Western support begins to teeter? On The Power Vertical Podcast this week, host Brian Whitmore speaks with Jeff Mankoff, a Distinguished Research Fellow at National Defense University’s Institute for National Strategic Studies and author of the recently published book Empires of Eurasia: How Imperial Legacies Shape International Security. Enjoy…
SHOW NOTES
Jeff Mankoff’s published works can be accessed here and here. His book, Empires of Eurasia: How Imperial Legacies Shape International Security, can be purchased here.
The article by James Sherr, “Putin’s Gaza Front,” which was referenced on the podcast, can be accessed here.