Russia-Saudi Relationship Is a Coronavirus Casualty
The outbreak dealt a hit to the two countries’ partnership, but they can still pull themselves — and global oil markets — back from the brink.
Russia has a lot more to lose than oil revenues.
Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/BloombergWe are seeing the first geopolitical casualty of the coronavirus unfold in real time: the fraying of the Saudi-Russia partnership. Up until now, it was reasonable to expect the biggest geopolitical upsets from the virus would be related to China, and such outcomes still might unfold in the future. Yet a coronavirus-instigated meltdown in the relationship between Saudi Arabia and Russia is on full display right now. It is already roiling oil markets in a way that could further upend the global economy, and has geopolitical implications well beyond energy markets.
Five years ago, a partnership between Russia and Saudi Arabia seemed inconceivable. The two countries had a history of mistrust going back to Saudi support for the Afghan mujahedeen, and they differed significantly on important issues, most notably on Syria. But the 2014-2016 descent of oil prices focused the minds of rulers in Riyadh and Moscow, and the two governments put aside their frictions to focus on lifting oil prices. Russia took the lead in forming and sustaining OPEC+, a 10-member group of oil producers that for the first time coordinated with OPEC over global oil production cuts. Although the collective efforts of OPEC and OPEC+ couldn’t bolster prices as much as many producers wanted, they were critical to keeping them in a middling range where many producers could manage in the short term.