Washington correspondent
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The Pentagon accused the Kremlin on Thursday of having a plot underway to invent and fabricate an alleged attack by Ukrainian forces on Russia, which it later intends to use as a pretext for an invasion. Apparently, according to the US government, Russia is even preparing a video that it intends to use as evidence of a previous aggression by Ukraine.
“We believe that Russia will produce a very graphic propaganda video, which would include dead bodies and actors and images of destroyed places, as well as military equipment in the hands of Ukraine or the West, even to the point that they would make that equipment appear to be supplied by the West,” Defense Department spokesman John Kirby said during a briefing at the Pentagon on Thursday.
The Biden Administration refused to make its evidence public. All it revealed is that the Russians would use military equipment similar to what Ukraine possesses, including a key weapon supplied by Turkey, a member of NATO, to reinforce the credibility of a false attack. That weapon is the Turkish-made Bayraktar drones, already used by Ukraine against pro-Russian separatists in the Donbas region. The latter infuriated Moscow, which has made it clear that it strongly opposes Ukraine being equipped with such technology.
“We have already seen this type of action by the Russians in the past, and we think it is important to call it out,” Kirby told reporters at the Pentagon.
According to the US authorities, this strategy falls within the Kremlin’s hybrid warfare, which combines disinformation and computer attacks with military operations on the ground. That video would fall under what is known as “false flag” operations, covert actions to appear as if they were carried out by other entities.
Recently, the US has already accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of laying the groundwork for an invasion like the one in 2014, something that the Kremlin denies while kneading more than 100,000 soldiers on the borders facing Ukraine. That year, Russia annexed Crimea.
US intelligence believes that Russia is already running a social media disinformation campaign against Ukraine and has sent explosives trained officers to carry out acts of sabotage against his own forces, which he will then use as an excuse.
At the same time, the United Kingdom has revealed in a statement that it has evidence that Putin will also install a puppet government in Ukraine.
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