The basis of cooperation between the Russian Federation and the UAE has always been trade, energy (cooperation within OPEC+) and the financial services market. Russia received significant financial investments from the Emirates in its large infrastructure and logistics projects. After 2022, the UAE, under sanctions, became a key financial and logistics hub for Russian business, which led to a rapid increase in trade turnover. Russia purchased sanctioned electronics and components here that it could not purchase directly. The parallel import market for Moscow grew rapidly. This Arab country also provided financial services for tankers of the Russian “shadow” fleet. After American and European regulators began to insist on the UAE’s compliance with sanctions restrictions, Russia’s opportunities to circumvent sanctions narrowed somewhat even here.
Later, to circumvent the sanctions, intermediary companies with Emirati registration were used, through which Russian suppliers purchased Western goods (sanctioned electronics and equipment). To hide the fact of the sale to the Russian Federation, it was not listed in the documentation as the end consumer. Russia uses the UAE banking system to pay for goods, bypassing dollar transactions, which complicates the monitoring of these operations by the West, and Russian businesses make payments for sanctioned goods using cryptocurrencies (CVC) to hide transactions from monitoring systems.
Various sovereign wealth funds play a significant role in the foreign economic activity of the Emirates, and the capital of the Persian Gulf countries, which has significant investment potential, has always been of interest to the Kremlin. One of the financial instruments of the UAE’s state policy is the sovereign fund Mubadala Investment Company, which is considered one of the largest in the world. According to the latest financial reports (based on the results of 2024, published in 2025), Mubadala’s assets under management (AUM) increased to $330 billion (approximately 1.2 trillion UAE dirhams). In 2024, Mubadala became the most active sovereign fund in the world, surpassing even the Saudi PIF in terms of new investments. The fund invested more than $29 billion in one year.
Its portfolio includes energy, financial services, high technology, infrastructure and defense. The fund is one of the main investors in the MGX platform and collaborates with OpenAI and Anthropic. Formally, it acts as an independent investor, but in practice it plays the role of a long-term strategic instrument of the UAE’s state policy.
Cooperation between the Emirati sovereign wealth fund Mubadala Investment Company and the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) was once quite intense. In 2013–2014, Mubadala and RDIF agreed on a strategic partnership for joint investments in various projects in Russia. Mubadala has actively invested in Russian technology, the oil and gas sector and real estate (for example, investments in Sibur, Pulkovo Airport, data center networks).
In 2020, Mubadala and Sberbank entered into a strategic agreement to explore joint investments, debt and equity financing, and long-term financing of projects in Russia and the Middle East. Sberbank CEO G. Gref called the agreement a “gateway” for Gulf investors to the Russian market. Mubadala’s total investments in all Russian projects (which included oil, logistics, real estate, and banks) as of 2022 were estimated at approximately $3–3.7 billion. Sberbank was designated the main administrator of the funds, through which the financing of infrastructure projects was channeled.
Until 2022, the fund continued to invest in Russian assets and companies that were of strategic importance to the Russian economy. However, after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Mubadala officially announced the suspension of all new investments in this country. The fund’s CEO, Khaldun Al-Mubarak, stated at the time that the situation made investments in the Russian Federation impossible. After the introduction of numerous anti-Russian sanctions, cooperation between Sberbank and the Arab fund was also formally frozen. Suspended cooperation and the lack of investment inflows into key sectors of the economy forced the Kremlin to look for ways to restore them. During the Moscow Startup Summit in October 2025, Sberbank CEO German Gref named the UAE sovereign investment fund Mubadala as the largest foreign shareholder of the Russian lender: “We are very grateful to them for remaining our investors. “I hope that they did not regret and will never regret investing in us, because Sberbank is growing very dynamically,” he said.
Due to negative trends in the Russian economy and the decline in foreign investment inflows, such statements are a Kremlin PR campaign to attract capital from the Persian Gulf countries to the Russian Federation. G. Gref himself has repeatedly stated in media comments about the readiness of Arab funds to invest in Russian assets despite sanctions pressure. The statements of the head of Sberbank were aimed at encouraging new financial investments from non-Western jurisdictions and demonstrating to the domestic market and Russia’s allies that its financial system is not in complete isolation. The situation is caused by the fact that due to Western sanctions, the Russian economy is in a state of deep stagnation, the Russian banking sector is acutely experiencing a liquidity deficit and needs foreign investment.
The Kremlin has not given up on attempts to restore access to Emirati capital and is betting on jurisdictions that balance between neutrality and self-interest, waiting for sanctions to be eased. This would allow Russia to remain part of the global financial system and make profits, which, given its ongoing armed aggression against Ukraine, is premature and unfair.
Today, the UAE government officially takes a neutral position on anti-Russian sanctions, which allows the Emirates to formally act as a financial and logistical “gateway” for Russia in its interaction with the rest of the world. Thus, compliance with sanctions restrictions depends on the responsibility of Arab companies and funds. In the Russian Federation itself, attempts will not stop to look for new ways to circumvent sanctions, as well as new promising markets.