The United States has claimed to have discovered intelligence of a possible Moscow plot to fabricate a video purporting to show a Ukrainian military offensive, either on Russian soil or against Russian-speakers in Ukraine.
The US State Department said Washington feared Russia could use such a video as a false pretext to launch an invasion. UK foreign secretary Liz Truss claimed the US intelligence was “clear and shocking evidence of Russia's unprovoked aggression and underhand activity to destabilise Ukraine”.
It came after Nato chief raised concerns over Russia’s continuing military build-up around Ukraine, warning Moscow had likely moved some 30,000 troops and weaponry into neighbouring Belarus – which he said was the “biggest Russian deployment there since the Cold War”.
Amid the ongoing escalations, Vladimir Putin is visiting China for the Beijing Winter Olympic Games and to bolster ties with its ally, with the Russian president writing in an article for China’s Xinhua news agency that Moscow-Beijing relations had reached an “unprecedented level”.
