Russia planned a 'graphic' fake video with corpses and actors to depict Ukrainian military attacking Russians as a pretext for war, senior US officials have claimed.
The plan involved staging a fabricated attack which the Kremlin would use to accuse Ukraine of genocide, using the outrage to justify assaults or have separatist leaders invite Russian intervention.
Officials have refused to release evidence of the plans or how they foiled it, saying it will remain classified to protect American sources, according to the New York Times.
Ned Price, the State Department spokesman, discussed the issue at his daily news conference, saying: “The production of this propaganda video is one of a number of options that the Russian government is developing as a fake pretext to initiate and potentially justify military aggression against Ukraine.”
The plans were so advanced that the Kremlin had already sourced corpses for the video and casting plans were underway for actors and equipment which appeared Ukrainian.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby added: “'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.”
The Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, dismissed allegations in comments adding: “This isn’t the first report of its kind.
“Similar things have been claimed before. But nothing ever came of them.”
It comes as it was revealed Russia is launching “provocation and deception” missions against frontline Ukrainian soldiers in an attempt to entice them into war.
Ukraine’s troops are hunkered down in trenches being fired at daily but are under orders to hold the line and not give the Kremlin an excuse to start a war.
Ukraine’s Army Oleksandr Syrskyi, a four-star General, at an air-strip outside Kyiv.
He described how Ukraine was defending against the growing Russian threat from its eastern flank, where there are 126,000 Russian troops and Belarus to the north, where there are 80,000 including Russian and local forces.
He said: “History shows that they may take any kind of action and carry out any provocation and we are ready for anything.
“But we keep up with our ceasefire regime in order to prevent any provocation.
“But we are on high alert all of the time. Since 2014 we have been in a state of permanent non-nuclear warfare.
“The Ukraine armed forces are conducting covert operations, we are conducting reconnaissance, planning for every scenario.”
