Dan Sabbagh – The Guardian Feb 14, 2022
Britain believes that Russia’s powerful FSB spy agency has been given the task of trying to engineer coups in Ukraine’s major cities in the immediate aftermath of any invasion launched by the Kremlin.
The assessment is that an attack would see Russia strike first against military targets, then encircle the capital, Kyiv, and possibly other major cities, with FSB saboteurs then expected to try to install pro-Russian leaderships within.
No specific evidence has been put forward to justify the two-step plan, but it is nevertheless considered by the UK to be a central invasion scenario, aimed at “regime change” in Ukraine, in which Russia would seek to avoid bloody and high-risk urban warfare after an attack on its neighbour.
Britain and the US both believe Russia has now assembled a force capable of invading Ukraine after massing more than 135,000 troops around its borders. The UK defence secretary, Ben Wallace, said over the weekend he believed an attack was now “highly likely” and cut short a family holiday.
Both western countries have made a string of intelligence-led warnings about Russia’s intentions towards Ukraine in recent weeks, including that the Kremlin is planning “false flag” operations as a pretext for invasion, and that a group of five mostly former Ukrainian politicians have been recruited to participate in a coup.
Some have been received critically in Kyiv and elsewhere. Four of the five politicians are now based in Moscow, making their Russian ties a matter of public record, while the fifth, the former Ukrainian MP Yevhen Murayev, said he was banned from Russia and there was “no public evidence” he was involved.
Russia denies it has any plans to attack its southern neighbour and has called western warnings “hysteria”. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has also sought to play down the likelihood of an invasion, saying on Saturday: “Right now, the people’s biggest enemy is panic.”
There is also scepticism in Ukraine that it would be possible to install any pro-Russian leadership in Kyiv and its other major cities, even in the context of a military incursion, given the broad public hostility to Moscow in the country.
But western sources fear that Vladimir Putin has not appreciated the depth of popular opinion in Ukraine. “A lot of over-optimistic assessments are being fed all the way to the top of the Kremlin,” one official said.
A similar multi-step plan was highlighted by Germany’s Bild tabloid earlier this month, based, it said, on a foreign secret service source. The newspaper went on to say Russia would then seek to appoint a pro-Kremlin parliament and round up Ukrainian activists and opposition leaders.
In response,the Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Bild had “crossed all possible lines of human, genuine morality and ethics”.
Ukraine’s SBU intelligence agency and others have repeatedly exposed evidence of FSB interference in the country since the start of the war with Russia in 2014. Late last year, the SBU said it had discovered a plot to smuggle explosives into the country from Russian-occupied Crimea.
Zelenskiy said at the end of November that a coup plot had been discovered, which officials added was being planned by an FSB officer and defectors of Ukraine’s interior ministry who had moved to Crimea.
Responsibility for Ukraine within the FSB lies with its fifth service, responsible for intelligence operations in former Soviet states. Its leader is Sergei Beseda, who was placed on US, EU and UK sanctions lists in 2014.
Beseda was wanted by Ukraine for questioning in the aftermath of the anti-Russian Maidan revolution in February 2014, believing he was part of a failed attempt to take control of violent efforts to suppress the popular protests. Moscow said he was present to help ensure the protection of the Russian embassy during a time of uncertainty.
Is this ‘The Truthseeker’ or just another pommy rag full of bullshit!?
If I wanted bullshit I would turn the telly on. More and more fleet street grift creeping in here, any more msm fluff I’m outa here!… 20 yrs I been coming here but wasn’t like this, never would you see UK empirical views stated as facts and given a pillow pffft. Your all redundant if you not careful.
“UK BELIEVES” = THE USUAL PACK OF LIES that ZZOGUK can dream up
Yeah right, as Mick says, what’s this MSM crap doing on Truthseeker?
There’s a problem. The government has lied so often to take us into wars. Perhaps now they want our support. Because of all the previous lies, they will find getting that support very difficult. It’s like the boy who cried wolf.
Maybe ‘thetruthseeker’ readers are expected to recognise The Guardian for what it has been shown to be (often) on this site.
….. a vehicle for UK Intelligence Services propaganda, misinformation and sometimes “we told you so” reinforcement if future narrative plays out as hoped, intended or even feared.
These people have to keep us believing what they tell us. They use many kinds of sleight of hand to achieve this.
Some times we are expected to use our own brains. I never thought this was put up as some kind of “Alternative News”.
its normal that are spys everywhere.
same in russia !
nothing new
Mick: has a point. I’m almost bored to death saying this shit. MI6 and the SAS stationed in UKraine have a long list of dirty ops to use in UKraine. We don’t really need bullshit articles from the UK fake news.
“Russia’s FSB agency tasked with engineering coups in Ukrainian cities, UK believes”
How about ” MI6, CIA, Mossad tasked with staging coupes in Ukraine, Libya, and the list goes on.
I agree with Mick; the TTS has become more like the gossip rags one might see displayed at the check out in a grocery store. Actually, becoming more like Jeff Rense.
This is called ‘accusing your enemies of that which you are yourself guilty’ and in defense of the posting of this article, I’m sure the irony of Britains accusation is not lost on Rixon, indeed the irony itself is likely the reason for the posting.
The UK, USA, French, Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese (the latter 2 mostly Marrano but Rome is still a sick group as well, created the plundering, money changer, corporatocracy of puppet leadership and all out dismemberment of the rest of the world. These monsters run the drug trade, steal all the resources they can, turn over governments, created the communist nations of the world (USSR out of NYC – city with the abomination in the harbor), the OSS in China even before the end of WWII, Defense plan orange – US NAVY book available on Amazon of the Asymetrical war against Japan 1895-1945, produce wars, war profiteering (Bernard Baruch – Billionaire after WWI and the creator of Fascism’s architecture from the War Industries Board which include Crypto-Jew Samuel Bush who made the munitions and was in charge of them and also what was on the Lusitania). NATO should have died long ago along with the Atlantic treaty which became the UN and the sick creation of the European Union – look up US Committee for a United Europe headed by OSS head and one extremely depraved individual William Donovan.
Look at the US and UK for the World Wars as the instigator of mass destruction of the western nations and what will be the end of Europe.