In the latest dispute, between Russia and the EU/NATO/USA over Ukraine, which takes us back to the days of the cold war, observers, who covered Africa and the Middle East, notices that in Egypt and several other countries in the region of North Africa and the Middle East, public opinion is siding with Russia not ‘ the west’.

Here Below what Dr Tarel Heggy an Egyptian intellectual, thinker, author and opinion maker, writes about Russia arguing that without Moscow support to Egyptians and Arab peoples, America would have succeeded in implementing its plan for the Middle East to enable the power of darkness, the Muslim Brotherhood to control the region.

Dr Heggy Writes: Russia for me has always been a magical name.

As a young Egyptian book-worm, I read hundreds of the masterpieces of the European Literatures (Russian, French, Italian, German, British, Spanish … etc.) all in beautiful Classical Arabic in extremely cheap (yet quite elegant) Soviet editions (by the Progress Publishing House, Moscow). The Soviet book-shop at Talaat Harab street(like Charring Cross Road in London, the bookshops of all kind in down town Cairo)  in Cairo was then (throughout the 1960s) my second home and a shelter in which I discovered the fascinating worlds of Pushkin, Gogol, Turguenev, Lermontov, Tolstoi, Chekov, Mayakovsky, Gorky, Pasternak and many others.  In addition, I was so lucky to be introduced to the arts of Opera, Ballet and classical music via the old Cairo Opera House (inaugurated in 1869)  ( which was burnt down 40 years ago) that was nearly an Egyptian/Soviet joint-venture. I was 14 years old when the High-Dam project (that was financially and technically entirely looked after by the Soviet Union) was launched. A project that meant a lot to the sons and daughters of Egypt. When the Egyptian/Soviet and thereafter Egyptian/Russian relationships were significantly dwarfed, I was profoundly hurt by the shift from an alliance with a great nation with unique historical and cultural wealth to an alliance with Uncle Sam : an imperial super-power with a minimal heritage, history and culture. As the Arab proverb says : you know who are your friends ONLY in the difficult moments. It is a proverb that most of the sons and daughters of Egypt remembered when Russia was a great supporter to the  Egyptian people who decided (on 30th June, 2013) to get rid of the power of darkness that the Muslim Brothers represented while ruling Egypt (30th June, 2012 – 3rd July, 2013). Today, the overwhelming majority of Egyptians long to an era of intensive political, economic, military, scientific and cultural cooperation with Russia and in parallel with China and India. This crucially required path is imperative to counterbalance the malicious American plans that always aimed at ventures such as what happened in areas such as Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and many other atrocities. Furthermore, Egyptians admire and value the crucial role that Russia has been playing to enable Syria not to fall in the hands of the ruthless and criminal radical Islamist movements (that are backed by the USA, the EU, Turkey and Qatar). Many Egyptians strongly feel that without the Russian support, the USA would have succeeded to implement its criminal “American New Middle-East Plan”, a plan that aims at segmenting and weakening the main Arab countries and enabling the atavistic/backward Muslim-Brothers to rule the Middle-Eastern Arabic speaking societies