Russia flag, credit: macky_ch / iStock, https://www.istockphoto.com/portfolio/macky_ch?mediatype=photography
The U.S. claims to have information that Russia has positioned a group of operatives to conduct a false-flag operation in Eastern Ukraine, in an attempt to create a pretext for an invasion, a U.S. official told CNN on Friday, Jan. 14.
The attack could happen between mid-January and mid-February, according to White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki.
A false flag is an attack or hostile action that hides the identity of the attackers and implicates another country or group as the perpetrator.
This claim came hours after several Ukrainian government websites were hit by a “massive cyber-attack” and threats that warned Ukrainians to “be afraid and wait for the worst.” This following a week of unsuccessful diplomatic talks between Moscow and NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. NATO is a 30-member intergovernmental military alliance between the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and 27 European countries that implement the North Atlantic Treaty signed after World War II.
The Biden administration was concerned Russia would stage such an attack, saying Moscow did something similar in 2014 when it accused Ukraine of preparing an attack against Russian forces.
Russia had already dispatched operatives trained in urban welfare who could use explosives to carry out acts of sabotage against Russia’s own proxy forces in Ukraine, thereby creating a pretext for President Vladimir Putin to order military reaction, according to Psaki.
“We are concerned that the Russian government is preparing for an invasion in Ukraine that may result in widespread human rights violations and war crimes should diplomacy fail to meet their objectives. We saw this playbook before, including the widespread effort to push out misinformation, not just in Europe but around the global community,” Psaki said.
The allegation was echoed by Pentagon spokesman, John Kirby said that Russia was preparing “an operation designed to look like an attack on Russian speaking people in Ukraine, again as an excuse to go in.”
Russian-language posts on social media accusing Ukraine and its western backers of planning attacks appeared at the rate of 3,500 a day in December, a 200 percent increase from the daily average in November, according to a U.S. official.
The provocation could take the form of a violent incident at the Russian embassy or consulate, which Moscow could then blame on far-right Ukrainian extremists, according to Ukrainian officials.
Russia’s presidential spokesman in Moscow, Dmitry Peskov, rejected the claims as “unfounded and completely unconfirmed.”
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