Foreign Digest: Lebanon and Russia

Lebanon: There were sentences last month of imprisonment issued for Hezbollah associates for the 2020 explosion at the port of Beirut that killed hundreds, wounded a multitude more and damaged many buildings, which I posted about. Explosives had been stored there negligently. Hezbollah, whose political party had been part of Lebanon’s governing coalition at the time, is a Shi’ite terrorist organization backed by the Islamic Republic of Iran, the world’s worst state sponsor of terrorism. Russia: The United States last week sanctioned Russian magistrates responsible for the political persecution of Viktor Kara-Murza, a center-right opponent of the tyrannical regime of ex-Soviet intelligence agent, Vladimir Putin. Moldova recently accused the Russian Federation of attempting a coup d’etat in the former Soviet Republic that lies between NATO member Romania and Ukraine. Russia has stationed troops in a breakaway part of Moldova inhabited by ethnic Russians, against the Moldavian government’s wishes. Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, seizing Crimea and fomenting a separatist rebellion in eastern Ukraine before launching a full-scale invasion of its fellow Slavic former Soviet Republic neighbor. Another former Soviet Republic, Georgia, was invaded by Russia in 2008 in support of breakaway territories in which Russia set up puppet states. The Russians broke their promise to withdraw and made a series of incremental encroachments onto Georgian territory. The Russians unleashed a series of cyber attacks on Italian institutions earlier this month because of the Italian Republic’s steadfast support of Ukraine against Russian aggression. Russia typically engages in cyberattacks against foreign States, in addition to interfering politically through propaganda and disinformation.