Anna Levina, a Russian researcher and photographer-documentarian based in Beirut, has been stockpiling supplies in anticipation of Israel’s assault on Lebanon, and she has had non-perishables in her kitchen since last October, when Hezbollah and Israel began firing missiles at each other.
“The feeling is, of course, unpleasant, but I’ve been waiting for this moment for a year,” Levina said of Israel’s major escalation of missile strikes on numerous sections of Lebanon, including Beirut, during the past two weeks, which has killed over 2,000 people.
On Tuesday, Israel also announced the start of ground operations in southern Lebanon, where its forces have since clashed with Hezbollah fighters.
Levina described how the Israeli army was “bombing residential buildings, and just now there was another air strike three kilometres from me on some medical centre.”
“It is difficult to cope with this on a human level,” she told me. According to commentators, the escalating conflict between Israel and its neighbors is also tough on a geopolitical level for Russia.
Russia’s foreign policy under President Vladimir Putin has revolved around a “multipolar world,” an alternative to the US-led world order. With heightened prospects of a direct confrontation between Israel and Iran, and the war also expanding decisively into Lebanon, what does this latest crisis mean for Russia’s interests as a global power .