According to a filing with the stock exchange, the Kingdom Holding Company of Saudi Arabia invested more than half a billion dollars in Russian energy businesses around the time when fighting in Ukraine began.
Prince Alwaleed bin Talal is the majority shareholder of Kingdom Holding, which analysts consider it as one of the most prominent enterprises in Saudi Arabia. The national wealth fund of Saudi Arabia owns approximately 17% of the investment corporation.
On Sunday, Kingdom Holding revealed on Twitter the specifics of the transactions it had carried out with the Russian energy corporations Gazprom, Rosneft, and Lukoil.
Saudi Arabia and other Gulf governments have thus far taken what they claim to be a neutral stance on the Ukraine conflict, disappointing some Western leaders who have pushed to isolate Russia in response to the invasion.
Saudi Arabia has cultivated tight connections with Russia, with both nations cooperating on oil production through Opec+. Its relations with Washington have been strained since the election of President Joe Biden, who pledged during his campaign to isolate Saudi Arabia for the murder of writer Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi operatives, as Financial Times points out. The CIA said that Prince Mohammed was in charge of the effort to “arrest or murder” Khashoggi, which the prince denies.
Since then, Biden has been forced to retract his statement, and in July he visited the Kingdom, where he spoke with Prince Mohammed and pressed for more oil production in order to combat rising prices and inflation.
