Saudi Arabia’s defense minister, Khalid bin Salman, has rejected claims that the kingdom has sided with Russia in its war with Ukraine following OPEC’s decision to slash oil production by 2 million barrels a day.
Taking to Twitter on Oct. 16, the defense minister re-tweeted a post from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dated Oct. 14 in which the leader thanked the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, for supporting Ukraine’s territorial integrity and voting to condemn Russia’s annexation of large swaths of the country.
Saudi Arabia pledged $400 million in humanitarian aid for Ukraine on Saturday.
“We agreed to interact in the release of prisoners of war. We agreed on the provision of macro-financial aid to Ukraine,” Zelenskyy wrote following a phone call with the crown prince.
Alongside the re-tweet, Khalid bin Salman wrote that Saudi officials were “astonished” by accusations that it is siding with Russia, adding that “it is telling that these false accusations did not come from the Ukrainian government.”
“Although the OPEC+ decision, which was taken unanimously, was due to purely economic reasons, some accused the Kingdom of standing with Russia,” bin Salman wrote in a separate post. “Iran is also a member of OPEC, does this mean that the Kingdom is standing with Iran as well?”
OPEC+ members announced on Oct. 5 the unanimous decision to cut down oil production amid uncertainty surrounding global economic and oil market outlooks.
A number of OPEC+...
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