Latest Russia in the Middle East Articles

Russia’s Middle Eastern Position in 2025

Summary Through 2025, Russia will continue to enjoy the prominence it now possesses in the Middle East and can be expected to succeed in this quest because it has strategically built and deployed the instruments of power necessary to sustain such a position, all things... MORE

Russia in the Middle East: Introduction

Today, Moscow is engaged across the entire Middle East in multiple and apparently mutually reinforcing ways. Apart from its military intervention in Syria, it now holds the balance between Israel and Iran as well as between Syria and Jordan. Russia makes energy pacts with Saudi... MORE

Russia in the Middle East: Energy Forever?

Summary The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is an obvious target region for Russian energy diplomacy. Unlike Western European states, Russia has never had an imperial presence in the region. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union pursued the policy of supporting Arab socialist... MORE

Demography’s Pull on Russian Mideast Policy

Summary Demography is among the most underappreciated drivers of contemporary Russian policy in the Middle East. Yet Russia’s ongoing population decline—and the expansion of Russia’s own Muslim minority—has exerted significant influence over Moscow’s attitudes and activities in the region in recent years. Most immediately and... MORE

Russia’s Financial Tactics in the Middle East

Summary Russia’s strategy to build a greater presence in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, and specifically the Persian Gulf, by using finance to influence geopolitics has become an integral part of Putin’s foreign policy. Since 2007, Russia has increasingly focused on financial... MORE