NATO Secretary-Common Jens Stoltenberg said Thursday the Western alliance has “seen makes an attempt” by Russia to stage a false flag operation in Ukraine, amid experiences of shelling within the east of the nation.
“We’re involved that Russia is attempting to stage a pretext for an armed assault in opposition to Ukraine,” Stoltenberg mentioned at a press convention. There may be “nonetheless no readability, no certainty about Russia’s intentions,” he added.
Stoltenberg’s warning got here amid experiences of elevated violence in Ukraine’s Donbass area, the place Kyiv has been preventing Russian-backed separatists for years.
Western officers have been warning Moscow might stage assaults within the contested space to justify a broader invasion. Russia at the moment has greater than 100,000 troops encircling Ukraine and is demanding Western allies pull again from Japanese Europe — a request Western leaders have principally rejected.
On Thursday, Ukraine and Russia accused one another of finishing up shelling assaults in Donbass. In line with media experiences, shells hit a faculty constructing and left two civilians injured.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson immediately known as the varsity shelling “a false flag operation designed to discredit the Ukrainians, designed to create a pretext, a spurious provocation for Russian motion.” Different Western leaders didn’t go that far.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the assault was “a giant provocation,” blaming it on the Russian-backed separatists within the space.
In Russia, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov mentioned the scenario was “very, very harmful” and that “each second runs the danger” of resulting in an “outbreak of warfare.”
And in Brussels, prime EU diplomat Josep Borrell mentioned NATO allies have seen the blossoming skirmishes alongside the border and have been “very involved,” particularly highlighting how Moscow is framing the scenario.
“We’ve seen quite a lot of disinformation from Russia’s aspect to be able to create an environment of alleged assaults in opposition to Russian individuals on this a part of Ukraine,” he added.
Stoltenberg additionally mentioned NATO had detected the presence of Russian intelligence officers within the Donbass area, and that he had mentioned methods of coping with the continued disaster, together with sending extra alliance troops to southeastern member international locations corresponding to Romania.
Russia has dismissed claims it would assault Ukraine as Western “hysteria.”
Cristina Gallardo contributed reporting.
if ( document.referrer.indexOf( document.domain ) < 0 ) {
aepc_pixel_args.referrer = document.referrer;
}
}
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?
n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;
n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.agent="dvpixelcaffeinewordpress";n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;
t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,
document,'script','https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js');
fbq('init', aepc_pixel.pixel_id, aepc_pixel.user);
setTimeout( function() {
fbq('track', "PageView", aepc_pixel_args);
}, aepc_pixel.fire_delay * 1000 );
Source link