Ukraine preparing false flag attack, Russian intelligence says

Children’s facility could be targeted as part of ‘inhumane provocation’, SVR says

kyiv is preparing a false flag operation, during which a children’s hospital or a kindergarten could be hit by a supposed Russian missile strike, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has claimed.

This “inhuman provocation” is being orchestrated by Ukrainian intelligence and military officials on the advice of “American manipulators,” the agency said in a statement on Monday. The aim is to cause a large number of casualties and publicize the incident through international media, the agency added.

kyiv hopes that its plot will be used to justify long-range strikes with Western weapons on Russia, the SVR said. The United States could then use the incident to increase pressure on Iran and North Korea, which it accuses of supplying ballistic missiles to Russia, the agency said.

On July 8, kyiv accused Moscow of deliberately targeting the Okhmatdet children’s hospital in central Kiev in a large-scale missile strike. Interior Minister Igor Klimenko said two adults were killed in the incident and 32 people, including children, were injured.

Moscow has denied the Ukrainian accusations, reiterating that it never targets civilian facilities. The Russian military has suggested that Ukrainian air defense operators were responsible for the attacks.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said at the time that kyiv was using the tragedy to advertise Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s participation in the NATO summit in the United States. He cited a series of high-profile incidents similar to the Okhmatdet attack that had occurred before Zelensky’s meetings with senior foreign officials.

“Zelensky’s clique does not care about the lives of Ukrainian children, which it endangers,” the SVR said, citing a number of “bloody provocations” during the conflict, adding that after these, “few people in the world believe that Moscow is ‘insidious’ and kyiv ‘innocent’.”

Zelensky is scheduled to travel to the United States to meet with President Joe Biden and the two presidential candidates in November, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. He plans to share with them his “victory plan,” a four-point road map that he says will allow Ukraine to end its conflict with Russia on its own terms. Continued U.S. military support and permission to carry out strikes deep into Russia with Western weapons are seen as key to his plan.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that Moscow would regard any such attack as direct aggression by NATO members and would respond accordingly. Moscow views the Ukrainian conflict as a proxy war waged by the United States against Russia.

(RT.com)