The Pentagon said Thursday it had evidence of a plan by Moscow to film a fake Ukrainian attack on Russians to justify a real assault on its pro-West neighbor.
"We do have information that the Russians are likely to want to fabricate a pretext for an invasion," said Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby.
He told reporters that Washington believed the Russian government plans to stage an attack by the Ukraine military or intelligence forces "against Russian sovereign territory, or against Russian speaking people."
The latter could refer to the sizeable Russian-speaking population inside Ukraine.
"As part of this fake attack, we believe that Russia would produce a very graphic propaganda video, which would include corpses and actors that would be depicting mourners and images of destroyed locations," he said.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called that statement a "delusion that is getting deeper and deeper every day."