As Saudi Arabia’s ambitious Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman is trying to mediate Russia-Ukraine war to gain more international prestige, there are obstacles on the path that he seems to be ignorant of.
It was on this Tuesday evening that Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy arrived in Saudi Arabia to meet the kingdom’s young crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman in order to push for a peace plan with Russia under the mediatory role of Riyadh.
Welcoming Zelenskyy, Bin Salman “affirmed the Kingdom’s keenness and support for all international endeavors and efforts aimed at resolving the Ukrainian-Russian crisis,” the Saudi Press Agency said Tuesday.
Zelenskyy arrived in Riyadh while the forces under his command in Ukraine are slowly being pushed back in eastern Ukraine by the Russian forces who are more in numbers and have more weapons supplies that the Ukrainian troops. And what Ukraine is doing now is to wait and see what its Western partners will decide about whether to send more aid or let Russia take over all eastern Ukraine.
As the war intensified in the area, the Ukrainian military announced this Tuesday that it withdrew its forces from two more villages of Stepove and Severne, near the key city of Avdiivka in the eastern Donetsk region following Russia’s ceaseless attacks to the spots. On the same day, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said at a meeting that his country had taken control of settlements including Severne in the past week.
In a tweet on X this Monday, Zelenskyy said that “Ukraine continues to rely on Saudi Arabia’s ongoing active support in pushing forward with a peace formula to end Russia’s full-scale invasion.”
The day before Zelenskyy’s visit to Saudi Arabia, bin Salman also received Vyacheslav Volodin, the chairman of Russia’s Duma, as well as a number of other Russian officials to discuss the same matter with them.
Why Bin Salman can’t be a good choice to mediate for peace in Russia-Ukraine war?
For months, ambitious Bin Salman has sought to position himself as a potential mediator to put an end to the long war between Russia and Ukraine and in this way, buy himself international credit. However, a more realistic view of his position in the war indicates that he is by no means a good choice to play the role of a mediator in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
This is first of all because Saudi Arabia is literally a Russia ally. In other words, Riyadh is closely aligned with Russia on energy policies through the OPEC+ group of countries. It has also refused to condemn Russia’s attack to Ukraine even once.
Another reason is that Saudi Arabia has already a big conflict in its surrounding to deal with, namely the Israel-Hamas war, and if MBS wants to mediate the Russia-Ukraine conflict to gain international credit while Israel-Hamas war is ongoing before his eyes, that would act counter wise and hurt his reputation.
In addition, Saudi Arabia has been deeply involved in recent years in a hot war with Yemen and a cold war with Iran. Therefore. it is rare for a hostile state like Saudi Arabia to play the role of a mediator and be successful in doing the task.
Last but not least, this was not the first time Zelenskyy decides to reach to Bin Salman for help. Back in May last year, the Ukrainian president had traveled to Saudi Arabia for a meeting of Arab leaders and also met then with leaders of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (the UAE) and Qatar all in hope for help to end the Russia-Ukraine war, with no result as of today.
