The U.S. Department of defense accused Russia of planning a fake video of a staged Ukrainian attack on Russia to justify its attack on Kyiv. The Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Russia would release a video with graphic scenes, including corpses, actors performing as mourners, and images of destroyed sites to justify its invasion of Ukraine.
Kirby added that the clip would purportedly show a Ukrainian attack on Russian soil or Russian-speaking people in eastern Ukraine. He also said the United States believes the plan had the Kremlin’s backing.
The U.S. deputy national security adviser Jonathan Finer told MSNBC that, “We don’t know definitively that this is the route they are going to take, but we know that this is an option under consideration.”
According to The Guardian, U.S. officials said that the clip would show “Turkish-made Bayraktar drones taking part in the fabricated attack as a way of implicating Nato.”
The New York Times and The Washington Post were the first to publish the account provided by U.S. administration officials. They indicated that the officials did not provide evidence for the allegations.
The U.K. said it agreed with the U.S.’s analysis after it conducted its own analysis of intelligence reports, as U.K. foreign secretary Liz Truss said, “The UK and our allies will continue to expose Russian subterfuge and propaganda and call it out for what it is.”
The U.K. and the U.S. also claimed that “Russia has deployed operatives inside Ukraine to stage false-flag attacks and has recruited Ukrainians to take over a puppet government that would collaborate with Russian occupation forces.”
Russian foreign minister Sergeĭ Lavrov denied the claims, describing the accusations as “nonsense.” He called on the Kremlin not to accept the United States accusations. In response to a question about these accusations, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that he urges people not to blindly accept unsubstantiated claims, especially those coming from the U.S. Department of state.
Reuters and CNN had quoted U.S. officials as saying that Russia transported blood supplies near the border, which indicates a possible imminent military attack. However, Ukrainian deputy defense minister Hanna Malyar denied the allegation, describing it as an “element of information and psychological war… designed to spread panic and fear.”
Russia accused the United States of stoking tension and ignoring Moscow’s calls to ease the hyped international panic over Ukraine after Washington announced that it would send about 3,000 additional troops to Poland and Romania, at a time when Russia is amassing over 100,000 soldiers near Ukraine’s borders, prompting Western countries to express fears of Moscow’s alleged intention to invade Ukraine.
As the world follows the recent developments in the Ukrainian-Russian crisis, official statements have become a factor contributing to increasing anxiety and panic fueled by accusations between Western countries and Russia.
This article is written by Bayan Hamdan
Translated by Ahmed N. A. Almassri
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