While Libya has been divided between two parliaments and governments since 2014, Russia's influence has grown with East Libya.

A review of the United Nations resolution on Libya's arms embargo is likely to be voted upon early next week. However this will only be achieved if Russian concerns can be overcome.

Despite the international efforts a paradox remains. A partial lifting of the UN's arms embargo to one side will greatly increase the danger of swelling the intensity of the civil war and of risking some of those arms reaching the Islamic State in Libya.

The Russians do not understand the West's approach to extremists. Russia's logic is sound as shown in Syria. If it looks like a duck and walks and quacks like a duck; it probably is a duck, to paraphrase Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavarov comment on terrorists.

In Libya the two divided factions, the democratically elected eastern government and parliament, the House of Representatives (HoR), and the 'Libya Dawn' coalition of Islamist militias who created Tripoli's National Salvation Government (NSG), are now challenged by a third 'virtual' faction, the Government of National Accord (GNA) which was selected by the UN as a nine men, now reduced to seven, Presidency Council (PC), which in effect constitutes a GNA quorum.