At Thursday’s daily press briefing, Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said the United States has information suggesting Russia is planning to create a fake video to “fabricate a pretext for an invasion” into Ukraine. The video above shows Kirby discussing said information at the briefing. According to Kirby, the fake video would be a part of a larger plan “to stage a fake attack by Ukrainian military or intelligence forces against Russian sovereign territory or against Russian speaking people.”
“As part of this fake attack, we believe that Russia would produce a very graphic propaganda video, which would include corpses and actors that would be depicting mourners and images of destroyed locations, as well as military equipment at the hands of Ukraine or the West,” Kirby said. “We’ve seen these kinds of activity by the Russians in the past, and we believe it’s important when we see it like this and and we can call it out.”
The U.S. has not provided detailed information backing up the intelligence findings.
This is not the first time the U.S. has accused Russia of trying to set a pretext for a potential invasion into Ukraine. Back in December, the White House accused Russia of developing a “false-flag” operation.
The U.S. has also released a map of Russian military positions and detailed how officials believe Russia will try to attack Ukraine with as many as 175,000 troops. In addition, Britain recently named specific Ukrainians it accused of having ties to Russian intelligence officers plotting to overthrow Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The U.S. has also sanctioned Ukrainian officials America believes are working on behalf of Russia.