Vlad the inspiration

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is fascinated by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s alleged ability to target former spies in the UK "and get away with it", a leading member of the Saudi opposition and friend of missing journalist Jamal Khashoggi has told Middle East Eye.

“Putin is a role model. MbS once asked in a gathering: ‘How does Putin manage to kidnap his opposition figures and assassinate them in London, and it does not have consequences?’” the opposition figure revealed, referring to the crown prince by his initials.

Bin Salman’s interest in Putin was stirred by the suspected poisoning of Sergei Skripal, a former double agent, and his daughter Yulia with Novichok, a nerve agent, in the city of Salisbury in southern England on 4 March this year by suspected Russian intelligence officers.

The British government has said it is highly likely that Russia was responsible, and the UK and many of its western allies have expelled Russian diplomats as a consequence of the case. Putin has denied that the Kremlin ordered Skripal’s poisoning.

The case stirred memories of the notorious fatal poisoning of another Russian defector, Alexander Litvinenko, in a London restaurant in 2006, in what a British government report concluded was a Russian intelligence operation “probably approved” by Putin.