According to a report on Monday in the Russian news outlet Shot, Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to visit the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia this week. The claim cited Putin’s assistant, Yury Ushakov.

The OPEC+ group of oil producers, including all three countries, decided on a voluntary reduction in oil production of about 2.2 million barrels daily on Thursday. This visit is said to have occurred after the group reached an agreement.

As a result of uncertainties over the extent to which the voluntary cutbacks would be effectively implemented, the markets responded to the arrangement with cynicism. After the news, the oil price dropped by two percent the previous week and continued to fall on Monday. By 17:09 GMT, the price of Brent crude had dropped by roughly 0.6%, reaching $78.45.

The number of 2.2 million barrels per day (bpd) involved expanding voluntary cutbacks of 1.3 million bpd already in place in Saudi Arabia and Russia.

According to Shot, Ushakov stated that Putin will first travel to the United Arab Emirates and then proceed to Saudi Arabia, where conversations will primarily occur with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

“I hope that these will be very useful negotiations, which we consider extremely important,” according to Ushakov.

In recent years, Putin has only been overseas on a sporadic basis, and most of his trips have been to countries formerly part of the Soviet Union. China, which he visited in October, was his most recent trip outside of those countries.

Putin is eager to cultivate the Gulf nations as part of his push to develop global alliances with non-Western countries. He is doing this to highlight what he considers to be the failure of the United Nations and its allies to isolate Russia through sanctions concerning the conflict in Ukraine. In addition to cooperating with OPEC+, Putin is eager to nurture the Gulf states.

When the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant against Vladimir Putin in March for the perpetration of a war crime involving the deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia, Putin’s ability to travel outside of the country was severely restricted. Russia disputed the claim and referred to the action as absurd; nonetheless, it stated that the move was legally invalid regardless of the circumstances because Russia is not a member of the International Criminal Court.

Putin can go to Arabia and the United Arab Emirates without the threat of being detained under the International Criminal Court’s warrant because neither of these nations is a court member.