QCD instantons and the soft pomeron

We study the rôle of semiclassical QCD vacuum solutions in high-energy scattering by considering the instanton contribution to hadronic cross sections. We propose a new type of instanton-induced interactions ("instanton ladder") that leads to the rising with energy cross section σ~s^Δ of Regge type (the pomeron). We argue that this interaction may be responsible for the structure of the soft pomeron. The intercept Δ>0 is calculated. It has a nonanalytic dependence on the strong coupling constant, allowing a nonsingular continuation into the nonperturbative region. We derive the pomeron trajectory, which appears to be approximately linear in some range of (negative) momentum transfer t, but exhibits a curvature at small t. Possible rôle of instantons in multiparticle production is also discussed.