How the War in Ukraine Reshaped Israel’s ‘Russian’ Community, by Nikita Aronov – 21 July 2026

From New Lines Magazine

In late February 2022, a fistfight broke out in Kibbutz Lotan, a small eco-community in southern Israel.

Dima, an immigrant from Luhansk, a Ukrainian city occupied by Russian proxies since 2014, clashed with Anton, an immigrant from Russia’s far east.

As Russian missiles struck Ukrainian cities and armored columns pushed toward Kyiv, Anton, who worked on the kibbutz dairy farm, decided to celebrate Defender of the Fatherland Day, a Russian military holiday. For Dima, that was unbearable.

Anton was baffled by his neighbor’s anger. He insisted he had nothing to do with the war. He was an Israeli, he said, merely marking a holiday associated with the army in which he had once served.

For veteran Israel-born members of the kibbutz, the incident was even more shocking. They were used to thinking of both men simply as Russians who spoke the same language, barbecued together in the evenings and appeared to belong to the same community.

Similar confrontations unfolded across Israel during the first months of the full-scale invasion. The popular grocery stores that Israelis had always called “Russian” shops, selling products like buckwheat groats, smoked fish and the fermented drink called “kvass,” suddenly hung up Ukrainian flags. People who had spoken Russian all their lives abruptly switched to Ukrainian.

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Nikita Aronov is a Russian and Israeli journalist specializing in social issues and reported features.

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