A primary objective of the strategy here is to achieve a partnership with the fundamentalists in Iran and Algeria and to replace the present American-Oriented rulers of Saudi Arabia with fundamentalists. The opening in Saudi Arabia of a Russian Embassy and the probable opening of Embassies by Muslim states of the CIS (read: Russian puppet governments) should be seen, not only as an attempt to extract a few extra Saudi Billions, but as part of an offensive to bring about a political reorientation in that country.
It's what they have wanted for over 400 years. Anyone who thinks that these "kinder and gentler" seeming technocrats in Moscow today have given up that dream is dangerously naive.