Russia's President Vladimir Putin
Russia is trying to convince Hezbollah and the Syrian Assad regime into a direct war with Israel.Reuters

Russia is planning propaganda to convince the Hezbollah and possibly even the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad into a direct war with Israel, a French official has said according to reports.

The official who spoke on condition of anonymity told the WND that the contingency was meant to be used as a "card" against the Western countries, especially the United States and the European Union.

This comes as the Western alliance has increasingly been isolating Russia. Notably, a week ago, the EU – with the blessings of Washington—adapted tighter sanctions on the Russian economy, including a restriction on investments in the Crimea especially with regard to Russian tourism and Russian Black Sea oil and gas explorations.

The unnamed official further revealed that Russia has been successfully sending large shipments of 'Iskandar' ballistic missiles as well as surface-to air missiles. The massive convoys of missiles were received by Hezbollah despite the reported efforts made by Israeli authorities to target weapons shipped by Russia in airstrikes earlier in December.

Russia doesn't seem to have made a final decision to push Hezbollah into attacking Israel, but the French official was cited as saying that Russia will possibly use one of the Middle-Eastern conflicts as a pretext to mastermind a Syrian attack on Israel.

Earlier in December, Syrian foreign minister Walid al-Moualem had travelled to Russia and met with Vladimir Putin and the Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov at a resort in Sochi. A source had revealed at the time that Putin and Lavrov had assured Moscow's support and protection to the Assad regime at any cost and that the country "won't stand for" any Western assaults.