Viktor Mikhin

The Center for Arab Unity Studies (CAUS) has held recently a very interesting and useful webinar on the US-led NATO-Russia confrontation in Ukraine and related international developments. Many Arab scholars, diplomats and analysts have attempted to analyze the current state of affairs in Europe and, where possible, provide some…

Against the backdrop of the seriousness of Ukraine’s Western-backed preparations for a dramatic escalation and aggression against Donbass and Luhansk, including with US-funded biological weapons, China has rolled out its defense budget for 2022. It happened on the opening day of the fifth annual session of the 13th National People’s Congress…

The tragic events of September 11, 2001 changed our world permanently. Although those who staged those events have not yet been identified, Washington unequivocally declared a “war on terror”, directed at the overthrow of Al Qaeda (a terrorist organization banned in Russia) and the Taliban regime (banned in Russia), supported by American…

While many pundits around the world engage in endless debate that it is the West, led by the United States that is decaying in its impotent rage, which is to blame for fueling the largest military conflict in Europe of recent years, the more pertinent question is: how and when will the West stop pitting brotherly Ukraine against Russia? When will Europe and the US stop pumping…

Algerian officials met separately with the representatives of the Palestinian factions in mid-January to help pave the way for a comprehensive dialogue on the Palestinian reconciliation and end the division between Fatah and Hamas, which has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007. The controversy began after the last Palestinian parliamentary elections in early 2006…

Iran and the United States used to be the closest allies before the 1979 Iranian revolution, but now they are uncompromising enemies. Quite a peculiar political metamorphosis.  Makes one wonder how former close friends turned into such enemies in just over forty years? And why it is the US who is still full of such violent hatred towards…

The human rights organization, Amnesty International, published a report detailing the “true extent of Israel’s apartheid regime” and strongly called for an arms embargo on Israel and for Israel “to recognize the right of Palestinian refugees and their descendants to return to homes where they or their families once lived.”  In this landmark report, the influential organization said…

The so-called political transition in Libya appears to have no end in sight. The political or interim phase seems to have completely diverged from the UN-sponsored roadmap, which was to culminate in parliamentary and presidential elections on December 24, 2021. But they failed because of sharp contradictions over the eligibility of several major…

African leaders are expected to head to Addis Ababa to attend the two-day African Union (AU) summit, scheduled to convene on February 5 and 6. The meeting will address a long list of conflicts — including militant and terrorist activities, management of natural resources, and internal disputes — that are stirring instability across the continent. Much attention is likely to be paid to developments…

Ever since the Taliban (an organization deemed terrorist and banned in Russia) took control of Afghanistan last August amid a shameful and chaotic US withdrawal, the country, ravaged by war and occupation for 20 years, has plunged deeper and deeper into disaster, causing new waves of displacement, further impoverishing it and raising the specter of mass…

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken was quite right when he said that the talks with Iran on its nuclear program are at “a decisive moment.” At it looked for a time as if Washington was ready to accept full responsibility for the deteriorating situation both in the Islamic Republic and in the Middle East as a whole. But instead, Mr. Blinken stuck to the aggressive policy line adopted by the current US administration…

In the final days of 2021 Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian National Authority visited Benny Gantz, Israel’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense at his home in Rosh Ha’ayin. The previous meeting between the two men had taken place in August, in Ramallah, following which Israel announced a series of “confidence…