CAIRO: Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi congratulated Russian conterpart Vladimir Putin Tuesday on his landslide re-election, his spokesman said.
Sisi “extended his sincere congratulations” to Putin, whose election for a fifth term with 87.28 percent of the vote “reflects the confidence of the Russian people,” according to the presidency’s statement.
Sisi “wished him success and the Russian people further progress and prosperity.”
Putin had run effectively unchallenged in the election, with only loyalist candidates allowed on the ballot in a process that Washington dismissed as “incredibly undemocratic”.
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Sisi had himself won a third term with 89.6 percent of the vote in a December election in which he ran against a small field of relative unknowns.
Since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Cairo has maintained close ties with Putin, despite calls by Western allies to stand with Ukraine.
Egypt has contented itself with calls for peace as it has prioritised its own economic interests.
The Arab world’s most populous country has long been heavily dependent on food imports, most of which came from Russia or Ukraine before the war.
Their disruption by the conflict sent prices soaring in a massive blow to the Egyptian economy that has left Cairo in a delicate balancing act.
In an online ceremony in January, Sisi and Putin hailed a “new phase” in the countries’ relations as they launched construction of a fourth generating unit at Egypt’s first nuclear power plant, al-Dabaa, built by Russia’s state atomic energy corporation Rosatom.
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