113 KATZ: SAUDI-RUSSIAN RELATIONS © 2009, The Authors Journal Compilation © 2009, Middle East Policy Council SAUDI-RUSSIAN RELATIONS SINCE THE ABDULLAH- PUTIN SUMMIT Mark N. Katz Dr. Katz is a professor of government and politics at George Mason University and a frequent contributor to Middle East Policy. I n February 2007, then Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Saudi Arabia, the very first visit by a top Russian leader to the kingdom. The Russian press expressed confidence that Saudi-Russian cooperation was about to increase dramatically. However, similar Russian hopes for Putin’s visits to other countries in the Middle East and elsewhere in the developing world have remained largely unfulfilled. Saudi-Russian coop- eration, though, actually did increase after Putin’s 2007 trip to Riyadh. With Riyadh signaling strong support for Russian policy in Chechnya, giving its assent to Russian accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) and signing a military-technical cooperation agreement with Moscow in July 2008, the Kremlin has reason to be pleased. Moscow is disappointed, how- ever, that there have not been more Saudi contracts with Russian businesses. Tension between Moscow and Riyadh over Russia’s relations with Iran is also apparent, in part due to the dramatic fall in the price of oil since mid-2008. More fundamentally, Saudi and Russian leaders appear to have different expectations of improved Moscow-Riyadh ties. This could well serve to limit their willingness to cooperate. A number of high-level Saudi-Russian meetings have taken place since Putin’s February 2007 visit to Riyadh. Saudi Ara- bia’s National Security Council secretary, Prince Bandar Bin Sultan (who had been Saudi ambassador to the United States for many years), visited Moscow in July- August 2007 and met with Putin, among others. The Moscow-appointed Chechen leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, visited Mecca in March 2007, August 2007 (when he met with King Abdullah), and December 2008. Crown Prince Sultan met with Putin in Moscow in November 2007, as did Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al Faisal in February 2008. Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, as well as a deputy prime minister — visited Riyadh in June 2008 and concluded Saudi-Russian trade talks, with Riyadh giving its approval at that time for Russian accession to the WTO. In July 2008, Prince Bandar visited Mos- cow again, where he met both Putin and Russian President Dimitry Medvedev and signed the Saudi-Russian military-techni- cal cooperation agreement. Prince Bandar and Putin also met in Astrakhan in Sep- tember 2008. Finally, in December 2008, at the OPEC Conclave in Algeria, Russian