RUSSIA: Kremlin Speaks On Putin-MbS Call, Blinken In Kyiv & Wagner Group

Russian state media reporting that President Vladimir Putin and Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman held a call earlier today in the wake of the agreement between the two OPEC+ members to extend the current voluntary oil production cut through to year-end. RIA reports that the two agreed that 'arrangements on oil production reduction ensure market stability'.

• TASS reports that MbS thanked Putin for supporting Saudi Arabia's BRICS accession, and that Putin briefed MbS on Russia's aims for its BRICS presidency in 2024.
• Kremlin spox Dmitri Peskov on US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken's visit to Kyiv today: States that 'Its clear that the US plans to keep supporting Ukraine to wage war to the last Ukrainian...US Support will not change the outcome of Russia's special military operation.'
• On speculation of US-Armenia holding joint military exercise: 'It requires alertness from the Russian side...Russia will closely follow the situation.' The drills, announced earlier today by the Armenian Defence Ministry, are likely to cause significant concern in Moscow. Russia views itself as the pre-eminent military player in the South Caucuses, and indeed Armenia is part of the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO).
• On the UK's designation of the Wagner group as a terrorist organisation: 'The group does not exist from a legal point of view.' The death of Wagner leader Yevgeny Prighozin and his deputy in a plane crash seems to have removed the last vestige of the group's independence, at least within the borders of Russia.