US warns of Russia plotting ‘false flag’ operation to provoke Ukraine invasion

The US has intelligence suggesting Russian operatives have been deployed to conduct a “false flag” attack in eastern Ukraine that will act as a signal for Moscow to invade its western neighbor, the White House said Friday.

Press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters that the operatives had been tapped to carry out “sabotage attacks” against Russian proxies in the region and added that Moscow’s “influence actors” had begun to “fabricate Ukrainian provocations in state and social media to justify a Russian intervention.”

The Kremlin has kept thousands of troops in the area of the border between Russia and Ukraine for months in what the US and its western allies fear is a prelude to an invasion and annexation of additional territory.

On Thursday, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told White House reporters that Russia was “laying the groundwork” for a possible invasion using the same “playbook” as for the 2014 annexation of Crimea.

While Sullivan cautioned that US intelligence agencies have not concluded the Russians have “definitively decided to take a military course of action in Ukraine,” Psaki said that an invasion “could begin between mid-January and mid-February,” resulting in “widespread human rights violations and war crimes.”

Late Thursday, a massive cyber attack hit Ukrainian government websites, displaying a message warning users to “be afraid and expect the worst,” Reuters reported.