It was a pleasure to re-join the WION news team for an on-air discussion of Vladimir Putin’s visit yesterday to its closest business partners in the Arab world, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
As the news presenter remarks in the introductory segment to this interview, this was Putin’s first trip to these countries since 2019 and given the very tense and volatile atmosphere in the region due to the savage attacks on Gaza by the Israeli Defense Forces, his visit is very timely.
Of course, all major Western media never fail to raise the question of the arrest warrant for Putin issued by the International Court of Justice in the Hague as a limitation on where the Russian president can travel these days. Regrettably the WION news team did the same, even going so far as to misidentify what the indictment was all about: it certainly was not a condemnation of the Russian invasion as such; instead it was based on perverse and incredible accusations of ‘kidnapping’ against the Russians for removing orphans and unsupervised children from the war zone in Ukraine to secure locations in Russia pending their reunion with relatives.
Nonetheless, I share the WION team’s characterization of this visit as an important reassertion by Russia of its military, economic and diplomatic presence in a region that the United States has long considered as its privileged back yard.
The link to this interview is below:
Putin visits Saudi & UAE on West Asia tour; Putin all set to host Iran's Raisi in Moscow | WION