Table Of ContentRussia Rising
ii
Russia Rising
Putin’s Foreign Policy in the
Middle East and North Africa
Edited by
Dimitar Bechev, Nicu Popescu, and
Stanislav Secrieru
I.B. TAURIS
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First published in Great Britain 2021
Copyright © Dimitar Bechev, Nicu Popescu, Stanislav Secrieru, and Contributors, 2021
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Contents
List of Illustrations vii
List of Contributors viii
1 Introduction 1
Dimitar Bechev, Nicu Popescu, and Stanislav Secrieru
Part I: Russia in the Middle East: From the Soviet Union to Putin
2 The Soviet Union in the Middle East: An Overview 13
Dimitar Bechev, Florence Gaub, and Nicu Popescu
3 What Drives Russia’s Policy in the Middle East? 21
Dmitri Trenin
Part II: Russian Policy in Action
4 Russia in Syria: A Military Analysis 31
Anton Lavrov
5 The Nonwar on Daesh 39
Florence Gaub
6 Russian Arms Exports in the Middle East 45
Timofey Borisov
7 Russia’s Energy Diplomacy in the Middle East 53
Carole Nakhle
Part III: Regional Partnerships
8 Russia and Iran: It’s Complicated 67
Carol R. Saivetz
9 Russia and the “Resistance Axis” 77
Julien Barnes-Dacey
10 Russia and Turkey: The Promise and the Limits of Partnership 85
Dimitar Bechev
11 Understanding Russia–GCC Relations 97
Dmitriy Frolovskiy
vi Contents
12 Russia and Egypt: A Precarious Honeymoon 107
Alexey Khlebnikov
13 The “Comrades” in the Maghreb 117
Dalia Ghanem
14 Russia and Israel: An Improbable Friendship 123
Mark N. Katz
15 Russia in the Middle East and North Africa: A Balance Sheet 131
Dimitar Bechev, Nicu Popescu, and Stanislav Secrieru
Notes 137
Bibliography 173
Index 203
Illustrations
Map
5.1 Approximation of Russian strikes in Syria (September 30 to
October 28, 2015) 40
Figures
7.1 OPEC crude oil production share by country (January 2020) 55
7.2 Reserves-to-production ratio, 2017 58
Contributors
Julien Barnes-Dacey is director of the Middle East & North Africa program at the
European Council on Foreign Relations. His work focuses on European policy toward
Syria and the wider Mashreq. He has worked as a researcher and journalist across the
Middle East, including in Syria from 2007 to 2011 where he reported for the Wall Street
Journal and the Christian Science Monitor.
Dimitar Bechev is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington,
DC, as well as a fellow at Europe’s Futures program at the Institute for Human Sciences
(IWM), Vienna. He is the author of Rival Power: Russia in Southeast Europe (2017).
He has held positions with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University
of Oxford, and the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) and has published
widely on Turkey, Russia, the Balkans, and the Eastern Mediterranean.
Timofey Borisov has been a research fellow at the Centre for Analysis of Strategies and
Technologies (CAST) in Moscow since 2016. He previously worked as a market research
analyst in the Russian defense industry. He holds a master’s degree in international
relations from the Higher School of Economics in Moscow. He is a regular contributor
to Eksport Vooruzhenii (Arms Exports) and Moscow Defense Brief.
Dmitriy Frolovskiy is a political analyst and consultant. He is a contributor to the
Carnegie Moscow Center, Middle East Institute, and many other think tanks. He is
currently a private consultant on policy and strategy in the Middle East with official
and private entities. He has also written extensively about Russia’s foreign policy
toward the Gulf Cooperation Council states.
Florence Gaub is the deputy director of the European Union Institute for Security
Studies (EUISS), where she is in charge of research coordination. In addition to
her work on the Middle East, she focuses on foresight and future studies. She holds
degrees from Munich University, the Sorbonne, the Institut d’études politiques de
Paris (Sciences Po) and a Ph.D. from the Humboldt University of Berlin. She was
previously employed at NATO Defense College. Her latest coauthored book is The
Cauldron: NATO’s Campaign in Libya (2018).
Dalia Ghanem is a resident scholar at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut,
where her work examines political and extremist violence, radicalization, Islamism,
and jihadism with an emphasis on Algeria. She has been a guest speaker on these issues
Contributors ix
in various conferences and a regular commentator in different Arab and international
print and audiovisual media.
Mark N. Katz is a professor of government and politics at George Mason University
in Fairfax, Virginia. He was a Fulbright Scholar at the School of Oriental and African
Studies (SOAS) in London during January–March 2018 and the Sir William Luce
Fellow at Durham University during April–June 2018.
Alexey Khlebnikov is an expert on the Middle East at the Russian International Affairs
Council and a strategic risk consultant. He received his master’s degree in global public
policy from the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of
Minnesota and both bachelor’s and master’s in Middle East studies from Lobachevsky
State University in Nizhni Novgorod. He was a research fellow at Johns Hopkins School
of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in 2013. He has published on international
relations topics, in particular on the Middle East, in academic journals and media
sources in Russia, Europe, the United States, and the Middle East. His research interests
are focused on the “Arab Spring” failure, current intraregional tensions (within GCC,
intra-Sunni, Sunni-Shiite), and great powers’ policies in the region.
Anton Lavrov is a graduate of Tver State Technical University. He is an independent
defense analyst affiliated with the Moscow-based Center for Analysis of Strategies
and Technologies (CAST). His major fields of expertise are Russian military reform,
the Russian defense industry, the 2008 Russian-Georgian War, the Russia-Ukraine
conflict, and the recent Russian operation in Syria. In 2018 he was a visiting fellow in
the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Carole Nakhle is the founder and CEO of Crystol Energy. She specializes in
international petroleum contractual arrangements, fiscal regimes and regulations;
sustainable development of the petroleum sector including revenue management
and governance; capacity building; energy policy, security, investment, and market
developments. Dr. Nakhle has worked with oil and gas companies (NOCs and IOCs)
at the executive level, governments and policy makers, international organizations,
academic institutions, and specialized think tanks on a global scale. She has published
two widely acclaimed books: Petroleum Taxation: Sharing the Wealth published in
2008 and reprinted in 2012 and used as a primary reference in leading universities and
industry training courses; and Out of the Energy Labyrinth (2007), coauthored with
Lord David Howell.
Nicu Popescu is director of the Wider Europe program at the European Council
on Foreign Relations. In 2019 he served as minister of foreign affairs and European
integration of Moldova. Prior to becoming a minister, Dr. Popescu worked as a senior
analyst at the EU Institute for Security Studies (2013–18); senior advisor on foreign policy
and EU affairs for the prime minister of Moldova (2010, 2012–13); head of program
and senior research fellow at ECFR in London (2007–9, 2011–12), and research fellow
at the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels (2005–7). He holds a Ph.D. in
