President Michel Aoun’s adviser for Russian affairs, ex-MP Amal Abu Zeid, has met in Moscow with President Vladimir Putin’s Mideast representative Mikhail Bogdanov to explain to him the motives behind Lebanon’s latest stances regarding Russia’s war in Ukraine, media reports said.

Abu Zeid told Bogdanov that Lebanon’s stances were based on “principles and political considerations,” al-Joumhouria newspaper said.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea accused Tuesday the Free Patriotic Movement of raising the megacenter issue in order to postpone the elections.

Geagea said, in a statement, that FPM head Jebran bassil and the FPM's MPs know that it is impossible to use voting megacenters in the upcoming elections.

Wrangling over the Ukraine war has showed deep divisions in Lebanon and in the Middle East, where Moscow has embedded itself as a key player in recent years, making powerful friends among state and non-state actors while America's influence waned.

Hizbullah has railed against the government's condemnation of Russia's attack on Ukraine, calling for neutrality, after an unusually blunt Foreign Ministry statement caused an uproar and upset the Russians, forcing the minister to clarify that Lebanon did not intend to take sides and would remain neutral.

The “Aounist camp” wants to postpone the parliamentary elections for three and not two months so that the vote would be held in September, highly informed sources said.

The aim is to “prevent the presence of a caretaker cabinet for a four-month period, which would be a long time should there be failure to form a government in the period between the election of the new parliament and the date of the presidential elections, seeing as President (Michel) Aoun’s term ends on October 31,” the sources told al-Liwaa newspaper in remarks published Tuesday.

Tourism Minister Walid Nassar, who is close to the Free Patriotic Movement, has denied calling for the postponement of parliamentary polls in Monday’s ministerial meeting that tackled the issue of voting megacenters, noting that his remarks were taken out of context.

“With all due independence, I’m in favor of megacenters and I don’t have political calculations. My political leadership is President Michel Aoun and Prime Minister Najib Miqati,” Nassar said in a TV interview.

President Michel Aoun on Monday stressed that “the upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections will take place.”

He voiced his remarks during a meeting in Baabda with a delegation from the European Peoples Party.

Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat said that the Axis of Defiance wants to "besiege" him.

"It's ok," he added, telling Nidaa al-Watan newspaper, in remarks published Monday, that Hizbullah wants to impose itself on the entire country and on all sects.

A few days after resigning from al-Mustaqbal Movement, ex-MP Mustafa Alloush has confirmed that he will engage in the upcoming parliamentary elections to “fill the void in the Sunni arena” following ex-PM Saad Hariri’s withdrawal from politics.

“We have not finalized the alliances yet and things are supposed to crystallize in the next two days. The candidates whom we will ally with are either independent or close to al-Mustaqbal Movement,” Alloush said in an interview with al-Akhbar newspaper.

At least two activists were beaten up Monday, one of them severely, after they chanted “Beirut Free, Iran Out!” at a section displaying pictures of slain Iranian general Qassem Soleimani at the Beirut International and Arab Book Fair at the Seaside Arena (previously known as BIEL).

MTV identified two of the activists as Shafik Bader and Nelly Qandil. It added that Bader’s cellphone was taken away by the attackers.

- Bakeries Closing Doors -

Several bakeries closed Monday as mills only delivered flour to Arabic bread bakeries, according to the mills agent in the South, Ali Rammal.