Notwithstanding its extensive arms trade with Algeria, Russia’s political relations with President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and his government seem curiously constrained.

On one hand, Algeria is a top market for Russian weapons. For example, Russian media have only recently reported a massive 2014 deal under which Algeria will assemble 200 T-90 tanks using kits supplied by Russia’s state arms supplier Rosoboronexport — a contract one Russian military expert estimated at $1 billion and described as “possibly the largest export contract for main battle tanks in the world.” 

According to the report in the business-oriented newspaper Vedomosti, the contract follows a 2010 sale of 185 T-90 tanks as well as a 2013 agreement to buy equipment to modernize 300 Soviet-supplied T-72 tanks. At the same time, Russia is reportedly building two Kilo-class submarines for Algeria. In 2006, Rosoboronexport announced a $7.5 billion sale of jet fighters, training aircraft, missile systems and tanks after a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Bouteflika that also yielded an agreement to write off $4.74 billion in Soviet-era debt held by Russia.

On the other hand, the Kremlin website does not report a Putin-Bouteflika meeting since the 2006 session, although then-President Dmitry Medvedev traveled to Algeria to meet his counterpart in 2010. Prior to Putin’s 2006 meeting, which was said to be a five-hour Kremlin conversation, the two men had not met since 2001. While every relationship is different, a close cooperative relationship typically produces more than three presidential-level bilateral meetings in 15 years.