‘I know how they think’

A Hezbollah official-turned-critic explains the group’s relationship with Moscow and how Russia’s failures in Ukraine likely derailed a real partnership

Interview by Lilia Yapparova. English-language version by Sam Breazeale.

Shortly after Moscow launched its full-scale war against Ukraine, the Ukrainian General Staff reported that the Russian army was recruiting reinforcements from Hezbollah, the Shia militant group that dominates politics in Lebanon and is classified as a terrorist organization in several Western countries. This didn’t exactly sound far-fetched: in addition to its history of collaborating with Russia in Syria, Hezbollah maintains close relations with Tehran, which has become one of Moscow’s closest partners since the war in Ukraine began. Hezbollah itself denies taking part in combat in Ukraine, but that doesn’t mean its members haven’t shown up at the front lines. To learn more about Hezbollah’s relationship with Russia, Meduza special correspondent Lilia Yapparova spoke to Sheikh Abbas al-Jawhari, who once sat on the group’s supreme political council but is now one of its fiercest critics.

‘Just ordinary terrorism’

Sheikh Abbas al-Jawhari’s support for the Iran-aligned Lebanese militant group Hezbollah has largely the same origin story as the group itself. In 1979, after decades of disenfranchisement, Lebanon's Shia Muslims, including al-Jawhari, watched with hope as Iranians ousted Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, paving the way for Shia clerics to take power.

“Even some in the West were blinded by this anti-imperialist fervor, to say nothing of Lebanese youth,” al-Jawhari told Meduza. “Since the time of the Ottoman Empire, we [Shias] hadn’t held any public or political posts; we’d been excluded from everything in the Islamic world. [...] The [Iranian] Islamic Revolution gave us hope that we’d finally be able to participate in our country’s [political] life.”

According to al-Jawhari, that hope lasted from 1979 until the 1990s — a period that, for Lebanon, was defined by civil war and occupation. In 1982, after Israeli forces invaded the country’s south, Iran sent 1,500 members of its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to establish and train Lebanon’s first resistance cells. These forces ultimately developed into a distinct militant group and political party called Hezbollah, or the “Party of God.” Al-Jawhari joined in 1985 — not as a soldier but as a teacher.

“My path in the party began with military service in the resistance in southern Lebanon,” he said. “Since I attended Lebanese State University (I have a Master’s in political philosophy) and even taught in a religious seminary in Beirut before [joining] the party, I took responsibility for the jihadists’ Islamic education. In other words, we were responsible for the ‘cultural’ part of Hezbollah fighters’ military training.”

As he watched Hezbollah evolve, it didn’t take al-Jawhari long to start wondering whether the young party had taken a wrong turn — and whether taking inspiration from Iran had been a mistake.

“I started to ask myself: were we in Hezbollah involved in politics just because we wanted to take power? Or was it to help the people? We had the example of Iran right in front of us: had the Islamic Revolution there improved the lives of ordinary Shiites? No, that hadn’t happened, and what’s more, it had dragged society back to the Dark Ages,” he said.

Al-Jawhari wasn’t the only person questioning the party’s leadership. In 1998, Sheikh Subhi al-Tufayli, who had previously served as Hezbollah’s first-ever Secretary-General, led a protest in the city of Baalbek.

“There was an armed clash between our wing and the extremist faction of Hezbollah,” al-Jawhari recounted. “We lost, and many on our side were killed. Our opponents, led by Hassan Nasrallah, who took over Hezbollah in 1992 and continues to lead the party to this day, received help from the Lebanese authorities and the country’s army.”

For his role in the protests, al-Jawhari was arrested on terrorism charges. After four months in prison, however, he was released on bail. The investigation is officially still ongoing, and according to al-Jawhari, the “ever-present threat” that he’ll be arrested on old charges is one of Hezbollah’s tools for exercising control over him.

“In 1997, I left Hezbollah, and every year, I’ve grown further and further from it,” he said. “The people in charge of the party are keeping the Shiites in ignorance, and the people are prepared to do whatever they’re told.”

Al-Jawhari didn’t intend for his exit from the party to mark the end of his political career, and he continues to run for office regularly. But according to him, each time elections draw near, his former comrades use the threat of violence to scare people out of voting for him.

“In April of this year, [for example], I went to the village of Al Huda near the city of Baalbak; I was running in that district. As soon as I started talking about democracy, gunfire rang out, and women and children started to scream. After that, I lost the elections,” he said.

There’s video footage of this incident. At first, it shows al-Jawhari standing under a tent, speaking to a small group of voters. The sound of automatic gunfire starts about 10 seconds in — but if you watch it with the sound off, you won't know anything's amiss for another 15 seconds, because al-Jawhari continues speaking calmly, ignoring the shooting until his audience starts to flee.

“I understand the rules of the game with Hezbollah,” al-Jawhari told Meduza, explaining his calm during the incident. “And I’m not afraid of my former fellow party members, because I know how they think and what they’re going to do. That gunfire wasn’t an attempt on my life, it was just ordinary terrorism. An attempt to scare locals so that no other village would accept us.”

Partners by necessity

According to Sheikh Abbas al-Jawhari, Russia and Hezbollah became allies in the summer of 2015, when Qasem Soleimani, then the commander of Iran’s Quds Force, traveled to Moscow to ask the Russian Defense Ministry to intervene in the Syrian conflict.

“This [partnership in Syria] was beneficial to Russia because Hezbollah has experienced fighters. And [Hezbollah] was counting on the Kremlin to help it on the international stage; [it hoped] the partnership with Moscow would help it achieve some parity in its relationship with the West,” he told Meduza.

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In the end, though, Russia was willing to partner only in Syria — nowhere else. “Moscow is still aware that Lebanon isn’t Syria,” said al-Jawhari. “And that it will never go from the West’s sphere of influence to any ‘Russian’ sphere of influence.” The result, he said, has been a “forced partnership” in which Russia and Hezbollah are each distrustful of the other.

“For example, Israel’s security turned out to be more important to Russia than its partnership with Hezbollah. Israel bombs the movement’s positions in Syria almost every day, and Russian air defenses could help with this, but Moscow hasn’t [provided them],” al-Jawhari said.

Still, Russia and Hezbollah developed joint channels for enlisting fighters in Syria. In 2016–2017, al-Jawhari said, soldiers were recruited in Damascus by a “trilateral commission” that consisted of representatives from Hezbollah, the Syrian army, and Russia.

But while the Russian Defense Ministry established a working relationship with Hezbollah in Syria, PMC Wagner (the mercenary group founded by Russian oligarch Evgeny Prigozhin 2014) reportedly had less luck.

“I heard that in 2018, [the Wagner Group] tried to establish contact with Hezbollah, but nobody responded. They wanted to organize a secret meeting with a high-status sheikh, but he refused to meet with them. The only people who can be recruited in Lebanon are Shiites. And it’s not possible to work in Shiite society if you don’t have ties to Hezbollah,” al-Jawhari said.

Buying time

While Hezbollah has effectively expressed support for Russia in its invasion of Ukraine, accusing the U.S. of instigating the conflict, the party’s general-secretary has stopped short of doing so officially. “Hezbollah’s general secretary can’t publicly support Putin for one simple reason: he can’t express support for an occupier,” said al-Jawhari.

Still, he said, the Hezbollah-controlled media in Lebanon has shamelessly parrotted Russian propaganda about the war, all of which is meant to make viewers feel that they’re a part of a “grand anti-Western alliance.”

“Hezbollah knows that a true alliance is impossible, but all Shiites who support the party are now convinced: ‘Russia will build us four power plants, China will build railroads, Iran will give us oil, and we’ll pay for all this in oranges. Solving Lebanon’s [protracted economic crisis] will be easy!” said al-Jawhari.

At the same time, the ex-party member told Meduza, Hezbollah is betting that Russia’s war will distract Europe and the U.S. and “buy it some time” to regroup after the Syrian conflict.

“Near the end of Trump’s presidency, the U.S. started pressuring Hezbollah, especially after the explosion at the Port of Beirut. There was serious talk that the West was planning to carry out a strike on [Hezbollah’s] weapons plants in Lebanon. But then the war in Ukraine happened, and now the West is fully invested there. That gives Hezbollah time to make up for the losses it incurred in Syria — manpower, weapons. Even six months would be enough,” he said.

Early in the full-scale war, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces announced that Hezbollah was gathering troops to support the Russian army. Though the militant group denied the claims and hasn’t been seen at the front, there was at least a seed of truth in the story, according to al-Jawhari: while Hezbollah doesn’t appear to have sent soldiers to fight in Ukraine, it may have sent special forces to engage in reconnaissance.

“Two months ago, I heard from a friend that the party had sent a group of highly-qualified special forces troops, between 20 and 50 people, to Ukraine — to the Russian side. So they could study — or, to put it more directly, steal — modern military equipment. Including the equipment the West has given Ukraine. After all, these missiles end up landing [in Russia],” he said.

Meanwhile, the Saudi news outlet Al-Hadath reported in March that Hezbollah was in talks with PMC Wagner to send 800 fighters to Ukraine and even gave the independent Russian outlet Novaya Gazeta copies of application forms that were allegedly filled out by potential mercenaries. Al-Jawhari told Meduza that the forms appear to be authentic, but it’s likely that Hezbollah aborted the plan after seeing Russia’s spectacular failures on the battlefield.

“When the first videos appeared showing the Javelins [anti-tank guided missiles] destroying Russian tanks, when the scale of Russia’s losses started becoming clear, the party realized that sending infantrymen there would just be suicide. After all, the death of a Lebanese soldier brings its own problems: it can’t be hidden, because each body will be brought home and will doubtless have a public funeral.”

In fact, according to Sheikh Abbas al-Jawhari, Russia’s poor performance in the war may have scared its allies in Lebanon not just out of providing military assistance in Ukraine but out of partnership altogether.

“These failures on the front scared the party and its supporters. So now, Hezbollah and Iran, which supports it, are trying to build mutual understanding with the West: they’re waiting for a window when they can make a beneficial deal, so they can cut ties with Moscow. Because if Russia is proving to be an unreliable partner even in a military context, why would [Hezbollah] want this partnership at all?”

Interview by Lilia Yapparova

English-language adaptation by Sam Breazeale