SYRIA: THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION’S RETURN TO THE MIDDLE EAST

Over the years, the Middle East has played a diverse role in Soviet and later Russian foreign policy. During the period of rivalry between the USSR and the US, it was an important area of confrontation. After its end, the Russian Federation became immersed in crisis and lost interest in the region. The Middle East again appeared in the Kremlin’s geostrategic thinking after the Arab Spring which the Russian authorities perceived as fuelled and directed by the West, especially the US. The consequences of these social upheavals in the form of the overthrow of the Libyan leader or the explicit aspirations of the West to remove Bashar al-Assad from power, led Vladimir Putin to take action. This article is an attempt to interpret Russian actions in Syria, including its military involvement, through the prism of the Kremlin’s neo-superpower policy.