I'm John Batscher with my colleague Anato Leven of the Quincy Institute for Responsible State Craft.

Within 24 hours, Vladimir Putin not only announced that he was traveling to the Middle East,

he traveled to the Gulf, he traveled to his speak to MBS, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia,

also the Sheikh of the UAE, being hosted generously by both leaders, and speaking

of working together into the future, a surprise, except, told I'm told that the price of oil is

critical to the sustaining of the war effort and also the economy in Russia, even under these severe sanctions.

And we've noted that the price of oil has been dropping,

at least since late September, I believe it was,

it's around 70 or something like that. It's certainly below what it was it's around 70 or something like that it's certainly below what it was below what mr

mr. Putin could desire in order to sustain himself and traveling to the Middle East may have been about production cuts.

Is that your information?

Is Putin in trouble with the money coming in?

We have a couple of minutes.

Yes in part.

And Saudi Arabia also has, though that's fluctuated and obvious interest in keeping prices high and therefore limiting production.

So the two leaders will have been talking about that.

But also of course, the population of Saudi Arabia has been infuriated by the war in Gaza and Putin

I think wants to exploit that by you know emphasizing Russia's not

hostility to Israel I would say but criticism of Israel and the war and of course Mohammed also has an

interest in sending a signal to Washington that he is not simply a puppet that Saudi Arabia has

interests and a will of its own in international affairs.

Did Putin, to our understanding, get some satisfaction about production cuts as early as the first of the year, or is it an unknown? We have 30 seconds.

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