Older Article but interdasting read:
US media launches war propaganda campaign against Russia as CIA prepares to back an “insurgency” in Ukraine
Jason Melanovski, Clara Weiss
15 January 2022
On Thursday and Friday, hours after a series of negotiations over Ukraine between Russia and NATO failed, the US intelligence apparatus and media have launched a massive campaign aimed at preparing public opinion for a military escalation of the conflict.
The talks had been set to fail from the beginning since both NATO and the United States made clear that Russian proposals on NATO expansion were “non-starters” after Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly begged NATO to give Russia “something, at least something.”
On Friday, CNN carried a report, based on an unnamed United States intelligence official, claiming that the US had uncovered a covert group of Russian operatives preparing to carry out a “false flag” operation in eastern Ukraine in order to justify a supposedly pending invasion.
As with all war propaganda pieces that rely on leaks from the US intelligence, the sources remained anonymous, no other evidence for the claims made was provided, and little was revealed about the exact nature of the allegedly impending attack. This allows the US to pin the blame on Russia for any escalation that may occur in eastern Ukraine in the coming weeks and months.
The New York Times followed up the initial CNN story with a piece by David Sanger, a longtime “insider” of the US intelligence and military apparatus and author of countless pieces of war propaganda. Sanger quoted several Biden administration officials who fully endorsed the intelligence leaks.
“Russia is laying the groundwork to have the option of fabricating a pretext for invasion,” White House Press Secretary Jan Psaki said, “including through sabotage activities and information operations, by accusing Ukraine of preparing an imminent attack against Russian forces in eastern Ukraine.”
The Kremlin has rejected the veracity of the reports with Press Secretary Dmitri Peskov stating, “So far all these statements have been unfounded and have not been confirmed by anything.”
Over the past months, NATO, with the US taking the lead, has pushed for an escalation of tensions with Russia, including through the deployment of military ships to the Black Sea and announcements that it would provide further military assistance to Ukraine.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/01/15/ukra-j15.html