Putin hosts Abbas in Moscow for strategic discussions

Russian President Vladimir Putin told visiting Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday that Moscow was pained by the plight of his people and backed their aspiration to create a fully fledged state.

Putin said Moscow was paying attention to events in the Middle East despite the demands of its own war in Ukraine. He did not refer directly to Ukraine's week-old incursion into western Russia, an operation that has caught Russia's military off guard and forced more than 130,000 people to flee their homes.

"Everyone is well aware that Russia today, unfortunately, must defend its interests and defend its people with arms in hand. But what is happening in the Middle East, what is happening in Palestine, of course, does not go unnoticed on our part," Putin said, according to a Kremlin transcript.

"And of course, we are watching with great pain and anxiety the humanitarian catastrophe that has unfolded in Palestine," he added.

Putin noted the death toll of almost 40,000 Palestinians in the course of the Gaza war since the Islamist militant group Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 people and taking more than 250 into captivity in Gaza.

Russia has longstanding ties to both Israel and the Palestinians. But since the war started, Moscow has upset Israel by hosting Hamas delegations and Putin has emphasised the plight of the Palestinians, saying at one point that the suffering of their children "makes tears come to your eyes".

Veteran leader Abbas, 88, said Russia was "one of the dearest friends" of the Palestinian people. "We believe in you, we trust you and we feel your support," he told Putin.

He said the United Nations Security Council - where Russia is one of five veto-holding powers - must act to "stop the actions that Israel is taking", after judges at the top U.N. court said in an advisory ruling last month that Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories and maintenance of Israeli settlements there are illegal.

Russia has sought to cast itself as a peacemaker in the Middle East and blame the region's problems on longstanding failures of U.S. policy. 

But Putin, in the remarks published on the Kremlin website, did not present any new initiative beyond reaffirming his support for Palestinian statehood and Russia's commitment to provide humanitarian relief.

Russia has also built closer ties to Iran since the start of the Ukraine war and Putin has urged Tehran to exercise restraint and avoid Israeli civilian casualties in its response to the assassination of a Hamas leader in Tehran last month, Iranian sources told Reuters last week.