Russian and Ukrainian officials gathered in Saudi Arabia March 24-25 for separate talks with the United States to broker a cease-fire around the Black Sea, a crucial geostrategic waterway, further raising Riyadh’s stature as a global player. These meetings come more than three years after Russia invaded Ukraine. The administration of President Donald J. Trump said these talks led to a tentative agreement between Russia and Ukraine to halt fighting around the Black Sea, though details are still being worked out. The Gulf Arab states, particularly Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar, are able to play an integral role in conflict mitigation around the Ukraine crisis because of their deep personal, economic, and political ties to both the United States and Russia. Whether these efforts are successful in achieving a permanent cease-fire depends largely on the warring parties, but the Gulf states have already played an important role in mediation.
Gulf States’ Positioning
The Gulf Arab states and Gulf Cooperation Council were unified in their condemnation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. But there have been subtle, important differences in how Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar have navigated the Ukraine crisis, their relationships with Russia, and U.S. and European efforts to sanction, punish, and isolate Moscow. Their different approaches reveal different comfort levels with hedging and balancing among the great powers as well as different national interests regarding their relationship with Russia, in particular. These three Gulf states have contributed significant humanitarian aid to Ukraine and mediated several important prisoner swaps and family reunifications between Russia and Ukraine throughout the war. On March 2, 2022, all of the GCC states voted in favor of a United Nations General Assembly resolution condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but they resisted joining U.S. and European efforts to politically and economically isolate Russia, opting for neutrality in the global standoff. But the Gulf states continued to engage with Russian President Vladimir Putin to varying degrees and have refused to follow the U.S. and European strategy of sanctioning Moscow. Moreover, in a more important U.N. Security Council vote to condemn and end Russia’s invasion only a few days before the U.N. General Assembly vote, the UAE, along with China and India, abstained, raising concerns among U.S. officials about the UAE-Russia relationship and Gulf-Russia ties more broadly that have continued throughout the war. As the U.S. foreign policy accents of the second Trump administration gather force, the challenges these Gulf states have faced in hedging and balancing among great powers may ease a bit, although the impact this will have on specific mediation efforts remains to be seen.
Gulf Motivations
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia is currently front and center among the Gulf states supporting Russia-Ukraine mediation, as it continues to balance its interests between the United States and Russia. Riyadh hosted senior-level meetings between U.S. and Russian officials, as well as between U.S. and Ukrainian officials, in February and March, with the aim of securing a cease-fire. These have been the first serious indirect Russia-Ukraine talks since the war began. But Saudi Arabia was active on this file during the administration of President Joseph R. Biden Jr. as well. Mediation has allowed Riyadh to balance relations with both Russia and Ukraine as well as Russia and the West. Only a few months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began, Saudi Arabia, along with Turkey and the UAE, facilitated the largest prisoner swap at that point in September 2022, releasing nearly 300 people. In February 2023, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan made a surprise visit to Kyiv and signed a deal for $400 million in aid for Ukraine. Saudi Arabia also hosted the Global Peace Summit on the Ukraine crisis in August 2023. Even though the meeting excluded Russia, Riyadh achieved a diplomatic win by bringing Russia’s most important ally, China, to the table. China had boycotted the previous Global Peace Summit held in Denmark because Beijing viewed it as an “anti-Russian alliance.” In the third iteration of this global summit on Ukraine, held in Switzerland in June 2024, Saudi Arabia did a 180 and, along with China, opted not to attend, citing Russia’s absence as the primary reason.
But while Saudi Arabia continued to maintain good ties with the West, condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and provided Kyiv with aid, at the same time it continued to foster warm political ties and refused to sanction Russia. Russia is a crucial global energy player and a member of the OPEC+ alliance, so Moscow’s importance to Saudi Arabia’s economic calculations and oil market were deemed too significant to rupture. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman hosted the Russian president in December 2023 during one of his rare trips abroad since the war began. Beyond these economic and political ties, Mohammed bin Salman has personal ties to Putin and many powerful oligarchs close to him, including Roman Abrahamovic, who worked with the Saudi crown prince to facilitate the Russia-Ukraine prisoner swap in 2022. Saudi expert Aziz Alghashian wrote on the social media platform X: “The Saudi positioning since the Ukraine-Russia war started was that of proactive neutrality. It condemned the invasion, refused to join the anti-Russia coalition, and supported Ukraine. It made sure it never stood against any actor more than siding with a particular actor.” Saudi Arabia’s hedging around joining the BRICS alliance is another example of this. Instead of committing to full membership in the alliance, which includes Russia, Saudi Arabia instead decided to only participate in BRICS+ for now, taking a more cautious approach with the non-Western alliance than its smaller Gulf neighbor, the UAE.
United Arab Emirates
The UAE has faced perhaps the most significant criticism for its position on the Ukraine crisis, especially after it abstained in the U.N. Security Council vote condemning Russia’s invasion and calling for it to end in February 2022. But even beyond this political signal, UAE-Russia economic ties have increased since the war began as wealthy Russians seek financial safe havens amid widespread Western sanctions against them. The United States sanctioned several UAE-based companies for sanctions violations relating to dealing with Russian businesses. During his Gulf tour in December 2023, Putin visited Abu Dhabi, where he was warmly welcomed with an air show. UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan also went a step further and met with Putin in Russia – the only Gulf monarch to do so since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In an interview in October 2022, one senior Emirati official said regarding the Ukraine crisis: “We want a political solution, we do not want to burn bridges with Russia.” An Emirati businessman similarly echoed this sentiment, saying that the UAE has “to have a working relationship with Russia. For the stability of energy markets, Russia is a major player.” As a member of OPEC and the Gas Exporting Countries Forum, the UAE cooperates regularly with Russia in the global energy market.
But the UAE has also attempted to maintain ties with Ukraine during this period, in an effort to mitigate some of the criticism about its close ties with Russia. In February, Abu Dhabi hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Importantly, Zelensky’s visit to the UAE took place just days before U.S.-Russia talks were planned to be held in Saudi Arabia.
Leveraging this close political and economic relationship with Russia, the UAE has facilitated several prisoner exchanges during the Russia-Ukraine war. Beyond the one facilitated alongside Saudi Arabia and Turkey in 2022, the UAE mediated a prisoner exchange that released 350 people March 19. This came after UAE-mediated exchanges in January and February and also in December 2024, among others. Overall, the UAE has helped release 3,233 prisoners of war so far.
The UAE has taken its hedging a step further by becoming a full member of the BRICS alliance. The UAE signaled its full support for the grouping, with Mohammed bin Zayed attending the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia in October 2024, while Saudi Arabia sent its foreign minister to participate only in the BRICS+ meeting in Russia. Experts regularly debate whether the grouping should be considered an “anti-Western alliance.”
Qatar
Qatar, along with Kuwait, has taken the clearest position in its official condemnations of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But it has maintained a strategy of neutrality. Like the other GCC states, Doha has not sanctioned or cut political ties with Russia, but Doha has gone a step further in signaling its discontent with Russia’s actions. Putin has not been welcomed in Doha since Russia invaded Ukraine, and Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani has not visited Russia since the war began (though Qatar’s prime minister/foreign minister has visited Moscow). Qatar’s emir met Putin on the sidelines of some international summits, such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in July 2024 and the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures summit in October 2022, both held in Kazakhstan. By contrast, Qatar hosted the Ukrainian president for a meeting with the emir, and Tamim pledged several millions in aid. One U.S. diplomat in the Gulf in a private conversation with this author suggested that Doha was the United States’ closest ally in the Gulf when it came to the Ukraine crisis. Doha has a more cautious and subtle approach than Riyadh and Abu Dhabi when it comes to hedging among the great powers and has shied away from much economic activity with Russia, and Iran, fearing U.S. sanctions. Like Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, Doha maintains economic ties with U.S. rivals, including Russia and China, but not the same level of political ties, especially not with Russia since its invasion of Ukraine.
But like the other Gulf states, Qatar has clear economic interests in ties with Russia, particularly in the energy sector, and considers Russia an important global player. Qatar and Russia are both major gas exporters, and both are important members of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum. Tamim and Putin have remained in contact throughout the war, most recently in a March phone call about Ukraine mediation and the collapse of the Gaza cease-fire. Perhaps sensing the shift in Russia policy from the Trump administration, in February, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov visited Doha, where senior Russian and Qatari officials agreed to increase economic and trade cooperation.
Also like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, Qatar has used its ties with both the United States and Ukraine on the one hand and Russia on the other to support conflict mitigation efforts, primarily focusing its efforts on reunifying Russian and Ukrainian children who were separated from their families during the war. There were even reports that secret, indirect Russia-Ukraine talks were scheduled to be held in Doha and mediated by Qatari officials in August 2024, but they were derailed by Ukraine’s offensive into Russia’s western Kursk region.
Hedging and Balancing Ties
Gulf states have shown that they can mediate both regional and global conflicts in ways that not many middle powers can. Their foreign policies of hedging and balancing ties between the great powers, as well as prioritizing conflict mediation and humanitarian diplomacy, have elevated their global influence. The number of world leaders that maintain close personal ties with U.S., Russian, and Ukrainian policymakers is quite small, and mostly in the Gulf. As Saudi commentator Ali Shihabi told CNN about Saudi Arabia, “I don’t think there’s another place where the leader has such a good personal relationship with both Trump and Putin.” This is a key reason why Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, including the UAE and Qatar, have played such an influential role in conflict mitigation around the Ukraine crisis. But all three of these Gulf states pursue hedging among the great powers to varying degrees, and Qatar has been the most cautious about its relations with Russia and upsetting the United States. Sensing a major shift in Russia policy under the Trump administration, and momentum for a Russia-Ukraine cease-fire gathering steam, Doha’s concerns have likely lessened. Nonetheless, all three of these Gulf states have used their different approaches to hedging to support conflict mediation where they can and will likely continue to do so.
