Washington. February 3. INTERFAX - The Russian authorities assured of their desire to conduct a dialogue on Ukraine, but Moscow's actions, including disinformation and plans to fabricate video recordings for an excuse to attack Ukraine, indicate other intentions, US State Department spokesman Ned Price said on Thursday.
"Russia has signaled that it wants to continue diplomatic negotiations as a means of de-escalation, but such actions suggest otherwise," he said at a briefing.
He repeated the statements of the US authorities that Russia plans to use fabricated videos in a disinformation campaign. Price clarified that such a method is only one of a whole set of tools that Russia is studying to use "as a false pretext to start and potentially justify military aggression against Ukraine." According to him, the United States does not know what methods the Russian Federation may resort to in the coming days, but Washington reveals them in order to dissuade Russia from acting this way further.
Price noted that the United States will continue to discuss with its allies "disinformation and other hybrid tactics against Ukraine" on the part of Russia.
"We once again call on Russia to stop its destructive and destabilizing disinformation campaign, contribute to de-escalation of the situation and adhere to dialogue and diplomacy for a peaceful settlement," he concluded.
Earlier on Thursday, The New York Times newspaper reported, citing unnamed senior representatives of the US authorities, that Russia allegedly plans to simulate an attack by the Ukrainian military in order to get a pretext for invading Ukraine.
