A. M. VASILIEV Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Everything that is healthy and viable in the political and civil life of each country should be carefully protected... and no reform caused by the demands of the times should lead to a sudden break between the past and the present, but should be carried out gradually in order to become clear to the people and not have the character of a dangerous experiment. Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Empire (1910-1916) S. D. Sazonov The collapse of the USSR meant the biggest geopolitical catastrophe of the second half of the 20th century. In place of the former superpower, Russia and 14 new states have emerged. Thousands of books have been written about it. An explanation of the causes of this disaster, its course and details is beyond the scope of this article. Let us only note that, from the author's point of view, Russia was the Soviet Union, that is, it headed the federation of its dependent countries - the Soviet republics. Its administrative borders became international (which gave rise to unsolved problems), and Russia itself found itself within the borders of the XVII century and entered a period of economic, social, military, and demographic decline. It is simply impossible to ignore the impact of this internal situation on Russia's foreign policy in general, and on its policy in the Middle East and North Africa in particular. According to E. M. Primakov*, who usually gave weighted estimates of events and did not support some harsh assessments of the author: "The 1990s were a failure for Russia. This is perfectly clear. In the 1990s, we lost more economically and scientifically than during the Second World War. In the 90-ies, we were born with oligarchic structures. It was necessary to abandon everything that was bad in the Soviet period, and take all the best that was in the Soviet period, and combine these two points. And we destroyed the old one to the ground. At that time, the Middle East was ... Читать далее