The trip is part of a series of diplomatic meetings by the Russian leader, and comes as Ukraine tries to shore up eroding Western support for its war effort.
FIFA’s president, Gianni Infantino, cheered a plan to take soccer’s richest event to the kingdom. He has said little about his years of work to make that happen.
In discussions with their American counterparts, Saudi officials have framed a ground war as a potentially devastating blow to stability in the Middle East.
Some paradigms taken for granted about Israel and the Palestinians, both in Gaza and the West Bank, have been broken. So has the idea that Washington can ignore the Middle East.
The escalation laid bare the limitations of diplomatic deals between Israel and Arab governments as long as the underlying conflict continues. “We told you so,” a Saudi scholar said.