On May 19, the Valdai Discussion Club presented a report on external influences on the Middle East relations, titled “Crucial Players or Insufficient Powers? The USA, Russia and the EU in the Middle East.” The report’s author, Igor Istomin, senior lecturer at the MGIMO University's Department of Applied International Political Analysis, summarized the influence of external forces on the Middle East as a sort of asymmetrical triangle of Russian, US and EU interests.