“Realism” is a school of thought in international relations theory which views world politics as an enduring competition among self-interested states. A case study of economic and cultural ties sustaining between Ukraine and the Arab Republic of Egypt can test some assumptions of this theory, permitting local and global impacts of the war on Ukraine to be assessed beyond the Eastern European and Mediterranean regions. The Arab Republic of Egypt became close to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics during 1955, a status the two states retained until 1970; since 1993, Cairo maintained an embassy in Kyiv, and Kyiv maintains an embassy in Cairo as well as an honorary consulate in Alexandria, justifying identification of the strengths and shortcomings of “realist” political science. Do economic and cultural ties reflect continuities established by a jurisdiction which no longer exists?