April 16th, Itai Brun, Brigadier General (Res.), gave a lecture to the students as part of an open country studies course «The State of Israel: History and Modernity», which is a MGIMO/Israel Institute in Washington joint project.

Itai Brun served as head of Israel Defence Intelligence (IDI) Analysis Division (2011-2015). Prior to this position, he was head of the Analysis Department in the Israeli Air Force Intelligence and the first director of the IDF’s DADO Center for Interdisciplinary Military Studies

Day five of the educational programme began with Mr Brun’s lecture entitled «Pressing National Security Issues of Israel».

He spoke about security challenges Israel is currently facing towards regional and global actors such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Turkey, Russia, and the USA. He also gave a brief coverage of the key military operations in the region beginning from the 1950-s, which had a great impact on Israel’s security architecture and defence strategy.