Sputnik
Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Saudi Arabia on December 6, having wrapped up his trip to the United Arab Emirates (UAE). What signal does Putin's Mideast tour send to the world?
President Putin embarked on a Middle Eastern tour on Wednesday to meet with Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the president of the UAE and ruler of Abu-Dhabi, and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman al Saud.
The Western press were quick to point out that the trips to Abu-Dhabi and Riyadh were Putin's first visits to the Mideast since the beginning of Russia's special military operation in Ukraine.
The tour has clearly demonstrated that the West's efforts to smear and isolate Russia failed miserably, international observers say.
"Reading the tea leaves of international politics, it is possible to say with confidence that the Western nations' attempt to isolate Russia has performed quite poorly," Dr. Marco Carnelos, former Italian diplomat and Middle East Adviser of Prime Ministers Prodi and Berlusconi, told Sputnik.
According to some excessively optimistic Western forecasts, Russia should have been on its knees in the summer of 2022," Carnelos said. "On the contrary, more than one year later Russian gross domestic product (GDP) is growing, and Europe is experiencing poor growth, its major economy, Germany, appears on the brink of recession, and the European continent borders the risk of de-industrialization in certain specific sectors due to the high prices of energy caused by the embargo on Russian supplies of oil and gas."
According to Carnelos, the "Global Rest" did not buy into the West's oversimplified narrative of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict — which was presented as a clash between 'an aggressor and a victim', ignoring the broader historical context of NATO's eastward expansion and Kiev's sabotage of Minsk Agreements. But at last the truth has come out, the former diplomat stressed:
"Today, thanks to some revelations of previous Western leaders, we know the value that was attributed to the so-called Minsk Agreements in certain European chancelleries. It is not surprising that this bilateral issue evolved in an open conflict. There are many responsibilities for such a war, and not all of them are in Moscow," Carnelos noted.
That is why many countries continue to maintain close ties with Russia: "To hyper-simplify the Global Rest has not followed the Global West," he noted.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE have tried to construct a more autonomous foreign policy over the past few years, the expert continued. Both countries have sought to diversify political and economic ties and embrace multipolarity instead of outdated bloc thinking, according to Carnelos.
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