An advance party of 15 Russian military specialists arrived in Beirut to assess damage caused by the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict. They came ahead of military engineers who are expected to work on rebuilding destroyed roads and bridges.
After the mission, the team will brief headquarters staff in Moscow on how much labour and money is needed for reconstruction.The engineers are expected to leave by sea for Lebanon at the end of September. Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov said on Wednesday that more than 350 servicemen will join the reconstruction effort.Russia Today correspondent Karina Melikyan, heading for Lebanon with the specialists,asked Rear Lt-Gen Ivan Tsigankov to assess the main task. The officer said this was to identify what was to be restored and how much technical expertise would be shipped to Lebanon. Russian specialists are likely to be involved in restoring five bridges and ruined road. The engineers are not part of the United Nations peacekeeping mission but have been tasked for the job by the Lebanese and Russian governments. They will be in Lebanon for four days.