Russia’s President Vladimir Putin shakes palms with United Arab Emirates’ President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan throughout a gathering in Saint Petersburg, Russia, October 11, 2022.
Pavel Bednyakov | Sputnik | through Reuters
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — United Arab Emirates President Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan traveled to Russia on Thursday for his second go to to the nation in lower than a 12 months, to fulfill with Russian President Vladimir Putin in an indication of the ever-strengthening ties between the 2 states.
The journey, based on Emirati state media service WAM, is targeted on the 2 international locations’ “strategic partnership” and on “methods to boost cooperation, significantly within the financial, commerce, funding, vitality, and different areas that serve joint growth, along with regional and worldwide problems with widespread curiosity.”
The UAE is a longtime shut ally of the USA and a significant army and intelligence associate. Additionally it is Russia’s most essential financial associate within the Center East — and commerce between the 2 has ballooned in recent times, significantly because the begin of Russia’s struggle towards Ukraine. Russia-UAE trade jumped by 68% year-on-year in 2022 to $9 billion, Russia’s commerce ministry stated in February.
Now, “the commerce turnover between Russia and the UAE reached $11.5 billion,” the UAE chief stated throughout talks with Putin on Thursday, based on Russian state media outlet Tass.
Bin Zayed instructed his Russian counterpart: “We wish this determine to be doubled each on the bilateral stage and with Eurasian international locations in the course of the subsequent 5 years,” including that relations between the 2 international locations “are growing at an accelerated tempo.”
Russia and the UAE signed a strategic partnership in 2018, and quite a few visits between their leaders have been exchanged since then.
Abu Dhabi has not formally taken a facet on the Russia-Ukraine struggle, as an alternative calling for peace and an finish to the combating. It has additionally refused to partake in Western sanctions towards Russia, offering a protected haven for Russian oligarchs and expatriates fleeing each sanctions and obligatory conscription. Some 4,000 Russian companies function within the UAE, according to reports, and overseas direct funding between the 2 has steadily elevated.
This pool {photograph} distributed by Russian state company Sputnik reveals Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and President of the United Arab Emirates Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan attending a welcoming ceremony forward of their talks in Abu Dhabi on December 6, 2023.
Sergei Savostyanov | Afp | Getty Photographs
The go to by the UAE chief to Moscow “says the UAE values its strategic partnership with Russian and can to proceed to deepen ties with Russia,” Anna Borshchevskaya, a senior fellow at The Washington Institute targeted on Russia’s coverage towards the Center East, instructed CNBC.
“As earlier than, the UAE needs to proceed to take care of a diversified overseas coverage general between Russia, the USA, and China, fairly than select just one.”
The UAE chief’s go to additionally comes because the White Home introduced an upcoming assembly between U.S. President Donald Trump and Putin to debate Ukraine struggle ceasefire efforts — and within the wake of Trump announcing punitive tariffs on India for importing Russian oil, which the American chief says is “fuelling the struggle machine.”
For Russia, the continued relationship with the UAE is a win and can also be “clearly an indication that they don’t seem to be practically as remoted because the West would really like them to be each diplomatically and economically,” stated Ryan Bohl, a senior Center East and North Africa analyst at Rane.
“The UAE can also be a key a part of Russia’s efforts to bypass Western sanctions. For [UAE leader] MBZ on a political entrance, it is a demonstration that he’s impartial of Washington, regardless of counting on American forces for safety,” Bohl stated, referring to Mohammed bin Zayed by his initials.
UAE ‘helps gasoline Russia’s struggle’
The U.S. has previously expressed frustration with the UAE’s enabling of Russian imports.
In 2023, the Biden administration referred to as the UAE a “nation of focus” for circumventing sanctions and export controls on Russia. In response to the U.S. Treasury Division, firms within the UAE in the course of the second half of 2022 transported greater than $5 million of export-controlled items from the U.S. to Russia — together with semiconductors that may energy weapons on the Ukrainian battlefield.
“The UAE helps facilitate dual-use commerce. It is a vital transit hub for dual-use items, which means items that may have each civilian and army use, so this commerce helps gasoline Russia’s struggle on Ukraine,” Borshchevskaya stated.
The UAE’s Ministry of Overseas Affairs didn’t instantly reply to a CNBC request for remark.
A big plume of smoke covers town after a mass drone and missile assault by the Russian Federation on the capital on Kyiv July 4, 2025 in Kyiv, Ukraine.
Libkos | Getty Photographs Information | Getty Photographs
To date, Washington has not moved to really punish the Center Japanese nation. Trump has not given the UAE or different Gulf commerce companions the therapy it did to India.
A part of that is due to Abu Dhabi’s function as a mediator between Russia and Western powers. It has facilitated communication between adversaries and brokered prisoner swap offers between Ukraine and Russia. Because the struggle’s outbreak in February 2022, the UAE says Emirati mediation efforts have seen 4,181 captives returned residence.
The UAE can also be buffered by its mammoth enterprise ties to the U.S. past simply protection: Abu Dhabi is a quickly rising hub for, and investor in, America’s largest AI and tech companies. Trump’s extremely feted visit to the Gulf region in May noticed quite a few main offers signed with the UAE throughout sectors, whereas Abu Dhabi in March committed to a 10-year, $1.4 trillion investment framework within the U.S.
U.S. President Donald Trump indicators a visitor guide subsequent to United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, at Qasr Al Watan, in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Could 15, 2025.
Brian Snyder | Reuters
The UAE’s friendship with Russia “is a supply of stress with the U.S., however not a significant one at this stage, significantly underneath the Trump administration,” stated Hussein Ibish, a senior resident scholar on the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.
“Nonetheless, as secondary sanctions are liable to kick in after Trump’s cease-fire deadline relating to the Ukraine struggle… the UAE and Russia are going to wish to coordinate any potential response to such secondary sanctions.”
Whether or not Trump decides to strain Abu Dhabi is one thing leaders within the UAE and wider Gulf area will possible be watching intently. However the small, oil-rich sheikhdom will keep its independence in terms of its overseas coverage choices, says Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon official and resident scholar on the American Enterprise Institute.
“The UAE is not excited by being a part of huge coalitions or strain campaigns; it is going to base its coverage on a slim and bare calculation of its personal pursuits and permit others to waste their time and vitality on sanctions, coercion, and nice energy competitors,” Rubin instructed CNBC.
“MBZ will do what’s proper for UAE, and never put all his eggs within the American, Chinese language, or Russian baskets.”