Kremlin Hopes Biden Will Not Seek to Turn Saudi Arabia Against Russia

President Joe Biden departs for his first trip as president to the Middle East, at Joint Base Andrews, Md., on July 12, 2022. Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters

MOSCOW—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.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Monday that Biden will make the case for greater oil production from OPEC nations to bring down gasoline prices when he meets Gulf leaders in Saudi Arabia this week.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also said that Russia, the world’s second largest oil exporter after Saudi Arabia and the world’s biggest exporter of natural gas, highly valued cooperation with Saudi Arabia within the framework of OPEC+ group of world’s leading oil producers.

“We are within the framework of the OPEC + agreements, and we highly appreciate the work that we manage to do with our partners, including with leading partners such as Saudi Arabia,” he told a daily conference call with reporters.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov attends an annual end-of-year news conference of Russian President Vladimir Putin, in Moscow, Russia, on Dec. 23, 2021. Evgenia Novozhenina/Reuters

“We highly appreciate our relations and our interaction with Riyadh and we certainly hope that the building of relations and the development of relations between Riyadh and other world capitals will in no way be directed against us.”

As the world faces one of the worst energy supply crunches since the Arab oil embargo in the 1970s, Biden has repeatedly urged the OPEC+ and its kingpin Saudi Arabia to lift oil production faster than the group is already doing.

But major Gulf producers have little spare production capacity.

Oil and gas exports, which constitute a significant share of Russia’s state budget income, are the centerpiece of Moscow’s response to the sanctions the West has imposed over the conflict in Ukraine.

President Vladimir Putin warned the West on Friday that continued sanctions against Russia over the conflict in Ukraine risked triggering catastrophic energy price rises for consumers around the world.

Putin says the West has fomented a global economic crisis with soaring inflation by imposing sanctions for what he calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine.