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The White House has accused Russia of sending saboteurs to eastern Ukraine in order to provoke incidents and then use them as a pretext for invasion if Moscow’s security demands are not met.
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters on Jan. 14 that US intelligence suggested Russia had “positioned a group of people to carry out a fake operation in Ukraine.” “Operatives are being treated for acts of sabotage.”
These comments are part of a series of warnings and threats of US officials towards Russia.
The remarks come after a week of negotiations in Geneva, Brussels and Vienna between US, European and Russian officials, who have called for a complete overhaul of Europe’s security structure.
The talks came after Russia deployed about 100,000 troops near Ukraine’s border, prompting Western intelligence officials to warn that Russia could launch a new invasion of Ukraine.
“Our intelligence shows that Russian actors have already begun to fabricate Ukrainian provocations within the state, and on social networks, to justify a Russian intervention and to escalate the situation in Ukraine,” Psaki said.
“The Russian military plans to launch these activities a few weeks before the military invasion, which could begin in mid-January or mid-February,” she added.
In Moscow, these comments have been ridiculed.
“So far, all these statements have been baseless and have not been confirmed by anything,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying by Russian state media.
As the United States and its Western allies raise alarm over the positioning of Russian troops near Ukraine, Russia has demanded written guarantees that NATO will not accept former Soviet Union countries such as Ukraine and Georgia.
Washington and NATO allies have held three rounds of talks with Russia to stabilize the situation, although they have made it clear that the North Atlantic Alliance’s open door policy is not non-negotiable.
Moscow, which has ruled out invading Ukraine, has said it will not wait indefinitely for a written response from the West to the security it has demanded.
“We have lost patience,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told an annual news conference on January 14.
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