Minneapolis, MN, USA. July 16, 2019—A thought-provoking collection of essays and articles on Russia’s burgeoning presence in the Middle East is now available in paper from East View Press.

Russia and the Middle East (382 p., ISBN 9781879944756) contains contributions from some of Russia’s most esteemed commentators, elucidating the underlying motives and objectives of Russia’s recent geopolitical forays into such a tinderbox region.

Edited by international affairs expert Fyodor Lukyanov, who leads Russia’s Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, many of the pieces in Russia and the Middle East are written by the same diplomats and officials who helped craft Russian policy in the Middle East, including Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, UN adviser Vladimir Orlov, and the late Yevgeny Primakov.

“This belongs in every curriculum and bookshelf focusing on area studies for Russia and the Islamic World alike,” said Kent D. Lee, East View’s President/CEO.

Leading American scholars agree. Ronald Grigor Suny, the William H. Sewell Jr. Distinguished University Professor of History at the University of Michigan, writes: “Pundits in the West have struggled to understand Moscow’s motives [in the Middle East]… This is the place to start to sort through the confusions that have obscured understanding of the stakes for Russia and the US in that vital region.”

Stephen Blank from the American Foreign Policy Council and co-author of Russia in the Middle East (Jamestown, 2018) calls this publication “A rewarding and revealing collection… Anyone wishing to understand Russia’s activities in the contemporary Middle East and its outlook on the region and international affairs needs to read this.”

To order your copy or to learn more, please visit www.eastview.com/resources/books-and-e-books/russia-middle-east/.