Kiev is preparing a false flag operation, in which a children’s hospital or kindergarten could be hit by a supposed Russian missile strike, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has claimed.
The “inhumane provocation” is being masterminded by the leaders of Ukrainian intelligence and the military at the advice of “US handlers,” the statement said on Monday. The goal is to cause a large number of casualties and publicize the event through the international media, the agency added.
Kiev hopes that its plot will help justify long-range strikes using Western weapons deep inside Russia, the SVR believes. The US would then use the incident to ramp up pressure on Iran and North Korea for supposedly providing ballistic missiles to Russia, the agency said.
On July 8, Kiev accused Moscow of deliberately targeting the Okhmatdet children’s hospital in central Kiev during a large-scale missile barrage. Interior Minister Igor Klimenko reported that two adults were killed in the incident, and 32 people including children were injured.
Moscow denied the Ukrainian allegations, reiterating that it never targets civilian facilities. The Russian military suggested that Ukrainian air defense operators were to blame.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said at the time that Kiev was using the tragedy to hype up the participation of Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky at the NATO summit in the US. He pointed to a pattern of high-profile incidents, similar to the Okhmatdet bombing, occurring before Zelensky’s meetings with senior foreign officials.
“The Zelensky clique disregards the lives of the Ukrainian children that it puts in harm’s way,” the SVR said. It cited a number of “bloody provocations” over the course of the conflict, adding that after those, “few people in the world believe that Moscow is ‘insidious” and Kiev is ‘innocent’.”
Zelensky is set to travel to the US to meet President Joe Biden, and the two presidential nominees for the November election – Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. He intends to share with them his so-called “victory plan,” a four-point roadmap which he believes will allow Ukraine to end the conflict with Russia on its own terms. Continued US military support and permission to conduct strikes deep inside Russia with Western weapons is understood to be crucial for his plan.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that Moscow will consider any such attacks to be direct aggression by NATO members, and would react accordingly. Moscow considers the Ukraine conflict to be a US-led proxy war against Russia.