News - Middle East: Russia says the attack against Lebanon’s resistance movement Hezbollah through pager blasts was intentionally designed to “provoke a major war in the Middle East”, after simultaneous explosions of thousands of pagers across the Arab country killed a dozen people and wounded thousands others.

Russia’s foreign ministry made the comment in a statement on Wednesday, just a after explosives planted in the AR-924 pagers went off across various locations throughout Lebanon, killing at least 12 people and wounding nearly 3,000 others.

The casualties include members of the resistance movement as well as civilians.

“We regard what happened as yet another act of hybrid warfare against Lebanon, which has harmed thousands of innocent people. It appears that the organizers of this high-tech attack deliberately sought to foment a large-scale armed confrontation in order to provoke a major war in the Middle East,” said Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for Russia’s Foreign Ministry.

Earlier in the day, the pager manufacturer, Taiwan’s Gold Apollo, stated that the exploding pagers were actually produced in Hungary.

Beirut and Hezbollah have held the Israeli regime squarely responsible for the deadly aggression, with the latter warning the regime about “severe reckoning” for the atrocity.

Tel Aviv has declined to comment on the attack.