RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — When Saudi King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud came to Moscow in October 2017, a popular joke in the city about the size of his motorcade was that it had as many vehicles as there were letters in the royal’s full name.

In Riyadh, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s motorcade was composed only of his Aurus Senat limousine but it was the 16 beautiful Arabian horses that accompanied the vehicle that showed the Saudis intended to give him a reception fit for a czar.

As in Moscow two years ago, Putin and Salman used the opportunity to further develop a better “personal chemistry,” including by exchanging gifts. The king presented the Russian president with a traditional Arab ornament. Putin, in turn, gave the Saudi royal a Kamchatka falcon symbolically named “Alfa” trained to hunt game birds.

What was different, however, is that if the king’s visit to Moscow in 2017 was an attempt to turn Russia-Saudi “relations” into a “relationship,” this time, Putin sought to fill this relationship with some substance that was long missing between the two states. Driven by this idea, Putin brought with him to Riyadh almost all state ministers and around 100 top Russian tycoons and other business executives.