Donbas Kindergarten Shelling is Russia’s False Flag Operation, Says Johnson
According to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the shelling of a kindergarten in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas is a false flag operation by the Russians, intended to justify Russian military action.
“This operation was designed to discredit the Ukrainians, to have a pretext, a false provocation for a Russian crackdown,” Johnson said during a visit to a military base in Lincolnshire. “We fear that we will see more such cases in the coming days.”
The government army and pro-Russian insurgents in eastern Ukraine accused each other of bombings on Thursday. Half of Stanitsa Luhanska was without power in an attack, and photos show how a shell left a large hole in the wall in a kindergarten.
The separatists, in turn, have accused their opponents of opening fire with heavy weapons. The leading militia in Luhansk said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky himself had ordered the armed forces to escalate the conflict in the region, Russia’s state-owned Tass news agency said.
Russia has already said it is “deeply concerned” about rising tensions in the Donbas. As a result, Moscow has gathered more than 150,000 troops in and around Ukraine. Western countries have suspected that a Russian invasion is imminent for several weeks, but Moscow denies having any plans to do so.
From atop NATO defence ministers in Brussels, Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin earlier today pointed to the Russians’ possibility of false flag operations to justify a raid.
