Hello, and welcome back to The Best & The Brightest, Tuesday foreign policy edition. Before we get to our main topic of the day—Mohammed bin Salman’s tour on the world stage as peacemaker—I wanted to write to you about the sentencing of imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny. He had been facing up to 20 years on charges of “extremism” and he had warned his supporters that he did not expect to get off lightly. “The sentence will be big, the kind that’s called ‘Stalinist,’” he said on social media, via his lawyers, referring to the 25-year sentences regularly handed out under Josef Stalin for “anti-Soviet activity.”

And, unfortunately, he was right. On Friday, after a rushed, closed trial—not in a courtroom but in the penal colony where Navalny is serving a nine-year sentence, in a case where evidentiary materials were often binders full of blank pages—he was sentenced to 19 years of essentially super-max detention. His elderly parents, who have both suffered from cancer, traveled to the penal colony where the trial was held and were promised that they’d be let into the room for the reading of the verdict, only to be turned away.

A little more on this…

Still, two things stood out to me about this latest verdict. The first is the information that emerged about Andrei Suvorov, the judge in this case. On the day of the sentencing, Russian journalists discovered that Suvorov had once registered for the “Smart Vote” project Navalny ran before his imprisonment in 2021. In almost every race around the country, Navalny’s team would pick a candidate that wasn’t as closely aligned with the Kremlin—or was even a Kremlin spoiler candidate—and announce their endorsement a day or two before the vote, when it was too late to remove candidates from the ballot. Many of these candidates won or gave the Kremlin an uncomfortable race for its money.

The fact that Suvorov was part of this registry explains what else we found out on the day of the verdict: he had been in close touch with the F.S.B. in the days leading up to the trial and during the proceedings. Sometimes, there were several calls a day. While this is not the first time we’ve seen evidence that judges in high-profile political cases are getting outside guidance, this is interesting for two reasons. First, the F.S.B. agent contacting the judge was part of the team that poisoned Navalny in 2020. Second, the judge had been registered as part of Navalny’s project to undermine Kremlin control of Russian elections.

One can imagine the F.S.B. approaching Suvorov and telling him: Your name was found registered with an organization that is considered extremist. Either Navlany goes to jail for 20 years, or you do. (Navalny’s team also connected this to the case of judge Natalia Repnikova, who sentenced him to two-and-a-half years in jail when he returned to Russia from Germany in January 2021. According to Navalny, Repnikova sent a message through some lawyer friends that she regretted her sentencing decision—only to die six months later. The official cause of death was listed as Covid, but…)

The second thing that jumped out at me was that Navalny, in that social media post and in his last statement in front of the court, said that the verdict wasn’t aimed at punishing him, but scaring his supporters. “Its main goal is to frighten. You, not me,” he wrote. “I’ll even say this: specifically those of you reading these words… By jailing hundreds, he is trying to scare millions.” He then exhorted them not to give up, not to be afraid, and to engage in whatever small acts of defiance they felt comfortable engaging in.

It was kind of standard fare for Navalny, but when Donald Trump said something similar about his own federal indictment on the very day Navalny was sentenced, something inside me jumped. “They want to take away my freedom because I will never let them take away your freedom,” Trump told his cheering fans at a G.O.P. event in Montgomery, Alabama. “They want to silence me because they want to silence you. In the end, they’re not after me, they’re after you and I just happen to be standing in the way.”

Trump is usually compared to Putin and other autocrats, but he is, lest we all forget, a populist—as is Navalny (who, by the way, protested Trump’s ban from Twitter and Facebook). Trump promised to drain the swamp, Navalny made his name fighting corruption. There is obviously a massive and definitional difference. Though they are both using the very powerful tactics of populist rhetoric, Trump is trying to upend democracy and install an authoritarian regime founded on his cult of personality—and is being held accountable by an independent judiciary. Navalny is trying to do the reverse: dismantle an automatic regime based around a cult of personality and, in theory, bring democracy to Russia—and is being punished for it by a very dependent judiciary. Still, it struck me how a similar thought, phrased in a similar way, can be quite powerful for its intended audience.

And before we get to M.B.S., some notes from Abby about what’s cooking in Congress…

By Abby Livingston

• Democrats’ new favorite spoiler?: A fresh Arizona statewide poll shows that independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is on track to be a spoiler in next year’s Arizona Senate race… but one who might benefit Democrats. The Emerson poll finds Sinema pulling more voters from a potential Republican nominee, Mark Lamb, contrary to the conventional wisdom that her putative candidacy would hurt the likely Democratic nominee, Ruben Gallego. In the survey, Gallego led Lamb by 36 to 29 percent; Sinema polled garnered 21 percent of respondents; and 15 percent of those surveyed were undecided.

  I did an around-the-world last week with Jessica Taylor, The Cook Political Report’s Senate expert, who underscored that the Arizona Senate campaign is her “asterisk race”—the most unpredictable in her portfolio. That equivocation is underscored by this poll, which did not survey Kari Lake, the dominant G.O.P politician in the state, who is openly mulling entering the race. Additionally, it’s still unclear whether Sinema, herself, will actually follow through with a run, how much national Democrats will play ball in Arizona, and if her potent super PAC spending will have a major impact in the state.

• I spy a shadow gubernatorial campaign: Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic gentlelady from Virginia who is reportedly telling colleagues she intends to run for governor in 2025, celebrated her birthday on Monday with a fundraising appeal. “And all I want for my birthday is some fun family time…AND to FLIP the Virginia House of Delegates and hold the Virginia State Senate!” she posted on Twitter, encouraging followers to donate to her federal leadership PAC.

  A glance at her PAC donations sure looks like she is gearing up to be a statewide figure in Virginia democratic politics. Most other U.S. House members representing a competitive seat are busy banking dollars for their re-election, transferring cash to the D.C.C.C., and giving away donations to federal colleagues with an aim to lay the groundwork for primo committee assignments and future House leadership races.

  But Spanberger’s donations were nearly all non-federal in nature: She made donations to the state Democratic Party and to Virginia Young Democrats, and I counted 25 donations to state legislative candidates since the beginning of the year. As for the federal game? Spanberger made two donations: One to Jennifer McClellan, a week before she won a special election in Virginia’s 4th. The other went to her 2018 classmate, Elissa Slotkin, two days after Spanbeger’s close friend announced her candidacy for a U.S. Senate seat in Michigan.

Still, it was a pretty monumental meeting, both for who was there and who wasn’t. Representatives of China, South Africa, Brazil and other members of what is often referred as the Global South sent emissaries, and the Chinese representative for Eurasia even met on the sidelines with Joe Biden’s national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, and Toria Nuland, the second-in-command at the State Department. Russia, on the other hand, wasn’t invited—and slammed the talks as a “hoax.” It was also, given the variety of viewpoints on the war among the participants, universally seen as a productive and positive conference, so much so that everyone, including China, the U.S., and Ukraine, vowed to reconvene.

Of course, the meeting was perhaps most notable for who hosted it: Saudi Arabia, and its Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Yes, the man who, according to the C.I.A., ordered the murder and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and whose country Joe Biden once labeled “a pariah,” is now convening the most plausible talks on ending the war in Ukraine. He got China to attend and take the conversation seriously. (“The Chinese were constructive,” said the senior administration official. “It’s the first meeting they had been to, and they listened carefully and participated in the discussion.”) He got Brazil, whose president has refused to condemn Putin’s invasion, to send representatives. Mexico, South Africa, Zambia, the African Union, and many other members of the non-aligned world—a segment of the globe that has been skeptical about Western arguments about Russia and Ukraine—also sent people. “I think the Saudis were very active in getting other countries to join,” said the senior administration official. “They played an active role and they have been helpful on a number of these issues. There was utility in having this conversation in a non-European setting, convened by a non-European country.”

This is not the first time that M.B.S. has tried to make himself useful in mediating the Russo-Ukrainian war. He has reportedly been trying to negotiate the repatriation of Ukrainian children that Russia kidnapped. He helped negotiate a large, surprise prisoner swap that included U.S. and European nationals. As I reported last week, he has attempted to make himself useful in trying to bring home Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich. In December, he tried to take credit for negotiating the release of Brittney Griner, and though the White House denied it, they did thank the Saudi government for raising the issue of wrongfully detained Americans with the Russian government. M.B.S. also sent $400 million in humanitarian aid to Ukraine—while refusing Washington’s pleas to keep oil cheap.

He has also made himself useful—or made a show of appearing as such—in mediating the conflicts in Sudan, as well as between Ethiopia and Eritrea. “The Saudis have had just about the best year of anyone, diplomatically speaking,” said Ian Bremmer, founder of the Eurasia Group. “They managed the Iranian deal with the Chinese. They’ve gotten the Syrians engaged in the Arab League. They’ve closed the chapter on Khashoggi and they got the LIV agreement so the sportswashing is supremely effective for them. And now they’re hosting the Ukraine talks. If you look at where Saudi Arabia was in 2018 after the Khashoggi murder and now, you can barely imagine that it’s the same country.” Which, of course, is precisely the point.

But in trying to mediate an end to the war in Ukraine, Whitson says, “the ironies are unbearable. Saudi Arabia has been fighting an illegal war in Yemen for eight years and, while there is a ceasefire, there is no peace. It has caused the deaths of over 300,000 people in Yemen and a humanitarian catastrophe. To be presenting himself as a peacemaker, I would really hope that M.B.S. would start with ending their war in Yemen unconditionally and making reparations for the damage Saudi Arabia has caused their country.”

But, according to others, that is a far too simplistic read of what M.B.S. is trying to accomplish. “He, along with other leaders in the Global South, don’t consider Ukraine to be their war,” said Bernard Haykel, a professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton. “This is America’s war with Russia, and that’s not where they want to be. They’d rather stand on the sidelines and speak to both sides. They don’t want to get caught up in a new Cold War.” That said, Haykel explains, “there’s no love lost between Russia and Saudi Arabia, none. And there hasn’t been for a long time.”

The two countries, after all, were on opposite sides of the original Cold War. “When the C.I.A. was no longer able to fund movements in Africa and other places, Saudi Arabia stepped in,” said Haykel. The Saudis funded a right-wing magazine in Italy, as well as right-wing movements in South America. They funded fighters in the era’s proxy wars of Africa. “The whole building up of Islamism against Communism was a joint Saudi-U.S. operation,” Haykel told me. “And by flooding the market with oil from 1985 to 1991, they helped bankrupt the U.S.S.R.”

The current spate of activity isn’t so much about getting the U.S. to like them, said Haykel, as much as it is about repositioning Saudi Arabia in the world as a global power—and a place for investment. (Actually, Haykel put it much more colorfully. “Western imperial narcissists think everything is about them. Saudi Arabia doesn’t give a shit about what they think about them!”) Or, as a source in Riyadh who asked for anonymity to discuss government policy pointed out, “Western coverage of Saudi Arabia always sees this as some kind of twisted ploy to win the favor of the country’s detractors. That’s frankly quite silly. And none of it has worked! These critics have still not placated.”

These observers point out a different dynamic at play, one that is guiding M.B.S.’s ventures in diplomacy. As many others have noted, M.B.S. has been trying to pivot Saudi society away from Islamism and toward nationalism. Part of that is allowing Saudi women to drive and live alone, allowing people to go to the movies and concerts, and effectively abolishing the religious police, but another part of it is also giving Saudis something to be proud of—such as its national soccer team, which succeeded in the 2022 World Cup beyond anyone’s wildest expectations; and and now soccer greats Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema have joined the Saudi league. Or beefing up the Saudi military and creating its own national military memorial day. Or being a global power that commands respect and whose presence is seen as necessary at any negotiating table.

“What he does is purely for domestic reasons,” Haykel said of M.B.S. “All of that is about reorienting the population toward something other than religion. It’s all to say, Saudi Arabia is a great country, we can be proud, and we can achieve things in the world. It’s very pragmatic and self-serving. He is trying to build the Saudi brand as a place to invest, to diversify away from oil, to promote tourism, etcetera. He’s more Lee Kuan Yew or Xi Jinping. He understands he’ll never be part of the West but he wants to be part of the G20, he has the ambition of the ‘Asian tigers.’ So he’s saying, don’t think of me as a warmonger, think of me as someone who can help with Sudan and East Africa and Ukraine.”

And, the fact of the matter is, so far, it’s working. The Ukrainians, if Andriy Yermak, Zelensky’s right hand man and Ukraine’s representative at Jeddah, is to be believed, are thrilled with the outcome. His team got to make their case in front of countries that have been more sympathetic to Russia or who don’t fully buy the Western narrative of the war. And, according to Yermak’s Telegram posts, he thinks he got somewhere.

According to the senior Biden administration official, the forum was “useful” and there was “broad agreement” on issues like the importance of territorial integrity, the need for food and nuclear security, and the need to bring Ukrainian children home. “I don’t think these Global South countries need to be persuaded that the war is a bad thing and that it’s having spillover effects,” said the senior administration official. “What becomes more challenging is how you end up working these things out and how war ends.” (I should also add that the fact that the White House is not privately pooh-poohing the Jeddah conference is very interesting. Several people in the White House made sure to do just that when I asked them last week about M.B.S.’s efforts to bring Evan home, emphasizing that M.B.S. was more keen to be seen to be helping than he was likely to actually have any influence on Putin.)

So far, it seems, M.B.S.’s diplomatic gambit is paying off, even if he couldn’t get Lionel Messi to sign on to his soccer league. “The Jeddah meeting was quite successful,” Bremmer concluded. “The Americans and the Chinese and the Europeans and the Global South writ large all think the Saudis are playing a useful role here. Everyone is appreciative that they’re doing this, except the Russians—which is kind of the point. They’re going to do another one of these, and China will show up. There will be working groups set up around this. The fact is that, after Jeddah, there is a broad, near-global consensus for the idea of territorial integrity, one that the Chinese can get behind and the U.S. can get behind. The devil’s in the details, yes, but compared to where we were six months ago? I give the Saudis a lot of credit.”

Julia