Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, president of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg to discuss “friendly relations” and “common interests.” 

One of those common interests was the massive production cut announced last week by the “plus” grouping of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC+), which includes Russia. Two months after President Joe Biden pleaded with OPEC leader Saudi Arabia to increase oil production and bring down prices at the gas pump, the cartel announced one of the biggest reductions in its history, slashing production by over a million barrels per day.

The OPEC+ cuts enraged the Biden administration, as they will most likely result in much higher gas prices for consumers with only weeks to go before the U.S. midterm elections. Biden’s favorite trick for blunting the political impact of his high gas prices, releasing huge amounts of oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), will be of little use because Biden has already drained the SPR to nearly 40-year lows.

Russia, on the other hand, was delighted by the OPEC+ production cut. The Kremlin on Tuesday applauded the cut as “balanced, thoughtful and planned work of the countries that take a responsible position within OPEC is opposed to the actions of the U.S.”

“This at least balances the mayhem that the Americans are causing,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Peskov needled the Biden administration for its angry reaction to the production cuts, which included White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Wednesday complaining that “OPEC+ is aligning with Russia.”

The UAE president’s visit to Russia looks like further evidence of such an alignment, which arguably began after Biden attacked Saudi Arabia on the campaign trail and declared his intention to resurrect former President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran.

CNBC on Tuesday quoted some analysts and sources close to Mohammed bin Zayed (commonly known by his initials MBZ) who suggested his trip to Russia will include a diplomatic effort to end the Russia-Ukraine war. 

A man watches as smoke rises above the buildings after the Russian missile attack on the critical infrastructure of Lviv. (Photo by Pavlo Palamarchuk/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

This theory supposes that Putin will be more likely to entertain a peace plan backed by his OPEC+ partners. The UAE and Saudi Arabia have both refrained from imposing sanctions against Russia demanded by Western nations.

Other analysts suspected the rumors of Ukraine peace discussions were just a thin cover for MBZ’s true purpose of furthering the OPEC realignment from the U.S. to Russia:

“The trip seems to be a politically motivated move and is advertised as the UAE’s efforts to bring peace back to the region,” said Iman Nasseri, managing director of Facts Global Energy, an energy consultancy.

He added that the UAE and Saudi Arabia, OPEC’s “two main players,” have shown their support for Russia over the past seven to eight months in several ways: keeping to the previous OPEC+ deal; reacting in a “very small” way to the United States’ and Europe’s request for a production increase in August; and by softening the impact of EU sanctions through re-exporting Russian petroleum products in the UAE city of Fujairah.

The Financial Times (FT) quoted “three people briefed on the UAE’s position” who said the Emiratis still regard themselves as a U.S. ally, pointing to the UAE’s support in September for a U.N. resolution condemning Russia’s plan to annex four Ukrainian provinces. They also claimed the UAE opposed OPEC’s production cut last week but was overruled by the other cartel members.

The FT’s sources said MBZ is genuinely concerned with the escalating Ukrainian conflict and its potential to become a world war, or even a nuclear exchange, and believes he is uniquely positioned to bring Putin to the negotiating table.

Putin on Tuesday welcomed MBZ’s visit and said the Emiratis could have a “significant” role in resolving the Ukraine conflict.

“I am aware of your concerns about how the situation is developing in general and of your wish to help with resolving all controversial issues, including the crisis that’s happening now,” Putin told MBZ at the beginning of their meeting in St. Petersburg.

The Emirati president’s meeting with Putin came on the same day Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky held a videoconference with the Group of Seven (G7) nations to discuss Russia’s escalating missile attacks on Ukrainian cities. 

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks during the official meeting with the President of the Republic of Moldova Maia Sandu, Kyiv, capital of Ukraine. (Hennadii Minchenko/ Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty Images)

Most of the G7 nations have condemned Russia’s deliberate strikes on civilian targets as “horrific” and “abhorrent,” in the words of the United States and Canada respectively. Zelensky asked the group to provide Ukraine with improved air defenses.

“The mood of this summit is already obvious and predictable. The confrontation will continue,” Kremlin spokesman Peskov snorted when asked about the G7 meeting.