Russian intelligence has been working to create a fake video of an attack on Russia’s own forces to justify invading Ukraine, U.S. intelligence officers said Thursday. The U.S. hopes to foil the plan by making it public. With the video of a staged military maneuver, actors playing dead, and authentic Ukrainian military equipment, Russia planned to accuse Ukraine of attempting genocide against Russian-speaking people as a pretext for its own invasion or intervention on behalf of Russian separatists in Eastern Ukraine, who have been fighting the Ukrainian government for more than eight years. Ned Price, a State Department spokesperson, said, “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.” Vladimir Putin has amassed more than 100,000 on the Ukrainian border, and experts say a military invasion is imminent. The Russian military has already engaged in disinformation campaigns in Ukraine.
