Zahraniční a bezpečnostní politika Ruska a jeho zájmy v regionu Blízkého východu a severní Afriky v kontextu událostí arabského jara

After the end of the Cold War, the relations between the Russian Federation and the states of the Near East and North Africa underwent many different developmental stages during the course of the next two decades. Whereas in the period of Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin’s presidency in the 1990s this region remained rather in the background of Russia’s interests, in the first decade of the 21st century Russia renewed its influence in this region during the presidencies of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin and then Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev. The events of the Arab Spring became a new challenge for Russia in 2011. In the context of these actualities, there are two main goals for this article. The first is to compare the position of the Russian Federation’s foreign and security policies in the region of the Near East and North Africa in the periods before and during the Arab Spring against the background of Russian interests. The second goal of the article is to define the influence of post-revolutionary developments on Russian foreign and security policy in the region of the Near East and North Africa.