US officials say they have evidence of a Russian plan to make a “highly graphic” fake video of a Ukrainian attack as a pretext for an invasion.
The alleged plot allegedly involves the use of dead bodies, footage of destroyed buildings, fake Ukrainian military equipment, Turkish-made drones and actors playing the role of Russian-speaking mourners.
“We don’t know for sure that’s the path they’re going to take, but we know it’s an option under consideration,” Deputy National Security Adviser Jonathan Finer told MSNBC. adding that the video would “involve actors”. playing the mourning of the people killed in an event which they themselves would have created”.
Finer added, “It would involve the deployment of corpses to represent allegedly killed bodies, people allegedly killed in an incident like this.”
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the video purported to show a Ukrainian attack on Russian territory or Russian-speaking people in eastern Ukraine and would be “very graphic”. He added that the United States believed the plan had the support of the Kremlin.
“Our experience is that very little of this nature is not approved at the highest levels of the Russian government,” Kirby said.
