Untangling the Iran-Russia-Hezbollah web
The Times of Israel Daily Briefing
The Times of Israel
4.5 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 28 April 2026
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Welcome to The Times of Israel's Daily Briefing, your 20-minute audio update on what's happening in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world.
Mideast and Russia expert Ksenia Svetlova joins host Amanda Borschel-Dan for today's episode.
Former MK Svetlova is the executive director of ROPES (Regional Organization for Peace, Economics & Security) and a senior non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council.
We open the program with an exploration of Iran's historic and current ties with Russia, after Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met yesterday with President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg.
Svetlova explores Russia's influence in the region -- specifically its direct ties to Hezbollah -- and assesses how much leverage Moscow may have in the ongoing negotiations between Iran and the United States.
In the second half of the program, we focus on Israel's relations with Arab Gulf states in the wake of the war in Iran. We hear how Israel deployed troops and the Iron Dome to its Abraham Accord partner, the United Arab Emirates. She discusses how the region is at a crossroads and the Gulf states are pragmatically discussing whether to deepen ties with Iran, or, potentially, with Israel.
Check out The Times of Israel's ongoing liveblog for more updates.
For further reading:
Trump reportedly unhappy with Iran’s proposal to reopen Hormuz but shelve nuclear issue
In Saint Petersburg, Iran’s FM blames US for failure of Pakistan talks
Subscribe to The Times of Israel Daily Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Ari Schlacht edited this episode.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Times of Israel's daily briefing. |
| 0:06.7 | Today's Tuesday, April 28th. |
| 0:08.8 | I'm your host, Amanda Borscheldan in our Jerusalem office, |
| 0:11.7 | joined by Ksenia Svetlova, an expert in all things, Gulf State, Russian, |
| 0:17.7 | and a former M.K, also the CEO of Ropes. Ksenia, thank you so much for joining me today. |
| 0:23.9 | Thank you so much for having me. It is such a pleasure. And today we're going to discuss |
| 0:27.4 | Russia's outsized role right now in terms of the Iran war. We're also going to talk about in the |
| 0:33.7 | second half of the program. What is happening with the Gulf states, how they've been |
| 0:37.7 | affected by the war with Iran, and how they're feeling right now in the stalemate of negotiations. |
| 0:43.9 | So all of this and more when we're back. |
| 0:59.0 | What does it mean to be Jewish in America today? |
| 1:01.6 | And does your denominations still define that? |
| 1:05.6 | In a special series on Wondering Jews with Mikhail and Noam, |
| 1:11.3 | host Mikhail Bitoin and Noam Weisman go deep on the question of Jewish identity in America, |
| 1:17.3 | exploring where these denominations began, how they've changed, and what they reveal about Jewish identity right now. The series features some remarkable guests. Historian Zev Elif on |
| 1:23.2 | why denominations exist at all. Professor Jenna Weissman Josslet on the restless genius of Mordecaplean, |
| 1:30.5 | Rabbi's Nicole Gozik and Eris Sherman on the future of conservative Judaism, |
| 1:35.6 | Rabbi Rick Jacobs on what reform stands for today, |
| 1:39.0 | and Rabbi Avi Kiliip on what a post-denominational Jewish life might actually look like. |
| 1:44.4 | It's a series full of big questions, honest disagreements, and surprising answers. |
| 1:49.4 | Listen to Wondering Jews with Mikhail and Noam wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 1:59.7 | When were the two of you the closest? |
... |
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