I first visited Saudi Arabia in 2016 to interview Muhammad bin Salman (MBS), then just deputy crown prince but already the power behind the throne of his father, King Salman. It was MBS’s first on-the-record interview and one that made global headlines. Laying out his radical blueprint for reform of the Saudi state, MBS broke the news that he was planning to list shares in Saudi Aramco, the kingdom’s oil giant. I have a vivid recollection of our conversation, which took place late into the night in his desert retreat outside Riyadh. MBS came across as young, confident and in a hurry. He was determined to transform the kingdom, and at speed. But I have an even more vivid memory of just how bizarre the experience of visiting Saudi Arabia then was: a rigid, repressive place where officials tried to persuade me to wear an abaya, where women could not drive, or travel without a man’s permission and were almost entirely absent from public spaces.  

Fast-forward a decade and that Saudi Arabia is long gone. As President Donald Trump prepares to visit Riyadh on the first state visit of his second term, our cover package in most of the world this week examines just how out of date that picture is. 

Gone is the impulsive brutality of MBS’s early years—the sort that led to the shocking murder in 2018 of Jamal Khashoggi, a journalist and dissident. The kingdom, though still an autocracy, is now a stabilising influence in the Middle East. MBS advises dealmaking with Iran and an end to the war in Gaza. At home the country has undergone a stunning social revolution. Women are now free to travel, work and live where they like. The vice squad has been disbanded. 

Saudi Arabia’s economy, however, remains stubbornly oily. About 60% of the government’s revenue still comes from selling crude. Although the hospitality and leisure industry is thriving, the flood of money being channelled into public spending is raising costs and crowding out private enterprise. To transform from a petrostate into a globalised, 21st-century economy, MBS must curb his vanity projects and create a more welcoming environment for private firms and foreign investors. Saudi Arabia has come a long way in just a few years. It still has far to go.

Our cover in Britain and Europe focuses on Vladimir Putin. As the death toll in Ukraine has grown, Mr Putin’s war aims have swollen to justify Russian losses. What began as a special military operation next door has become an existential struggle against distant enemies. This shift means Ukraine’s future depends on Mr Putin’s ambitions more than Mr Trump’s theatrical diplomacy. It also means that many Europeans are complacent about the threat Russia poses—and that they misunderstand how to deter him.