Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that the Middle East was on the brink of a full-scale war as tensions rose sharply between Israel and Iran.

"The fighting that began a year ago in Gaza has now spread to Lebanon," Putin, sitting beside Chinese President Xi Jinping, told a meeting of the BRICS+ group in the city of Kazan on the Volga.

"Other countries in the region were also affected. The degree of confrontation between Israel and Iran has sharply increased. All this resembles a chain reaction and puts the entire Middle East on the brink of a full-scale war."