We have seen the reports of the bombings and it is certainly disturbing. We are still gathering the details. We’ve been saying for some time that the Russians might do something like this to justify a military-style conflict
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said following a meeting with his Alliance counterparts at NATO headquarters. NATO.
We will be alert to those operations where Russia fabricates a dramatic event to justify an attack, a game we have seen play out in the past, and we will continue to examine ways to improve our readiness.
he added.
We have no certainty about the incidents but we have seen attempts to stage a pretext to justify an invasion of Ukraine and of course that is a concern
for his part declared Jens Stoltenberg, the secretary general of the NATO.
There are quite a few Russian officers in Donbass and they can make a pretext
he argued.
We are closely monitoring what is happening and we will continue to expose Russia’s disinformation plans and actions to make it harder for them to invade.
he explained.
We see a lot of misinformation from Russian sites to create an atmosphere of alleged attacks against the Russian population in this part of Ukraine
also underlined the head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, after a meeting of EU leaders devoted to tensions between Russia and Ukraine, before a summit with their counterparts from the African Union in Brussels.
A provocation for discredit
Kyiv
United States President Joe Biden has reiterated that the risk of a Russian invasion of Ukraine is very high
as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Thursday openly accused Russia of a provocation
aiming to discredit
Kiev and justify an intervention.
” A kindergarten was bombed in what we consider to be, what we know to be an operation […] designed to discredit the Ukrainians, designed to create a pretext, a false provocation justifying Russian action. »
The Ukrainian army and pro-Russian separatists accused each other on Thursday of bombing and escalation in eastern Ukraine, which has been in the grip of a conflict since 2014, in the midst of a crisis between Moscow and the West.
In a statement posted on Facebook, the Ukrainian military accused separatist fighters of targeting with particular cynicism
the locality of Stanitsa Louganska, affecting in particular a kindergarten.
Russia, accused by Washington of seeking to create excuses
to attack Ukraine and which has massed more than 100,000 troops on the country’s borders, expressed its deep concern
.
Ukraine’s military has been battling pro-Russian separatists backed by Moscow since 2014 in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, a conflict that has left more than 14,000 dead and more than 1.5 million displaced.