U.S. intelligence agencies believe Russia has formed a plan to fabricate a pretext for an invasion of Ukraine, potentially by producing propaganda videos showing a staged attack, the United States said on Thursday, Reuters reported.

The United States accused Russia of formulating several options to give it an excuse for an invasion of Ukraine amid rising tensions with Western countries.

One of the options is a fabricated video showing the graphic aftermath of an explosion targeting Russian people, featuring corpses, mourners and equipment appearing to belong to Ukraine or allied nations, State Department spokesman Ned Price and a Biden administration official said.

"The video will be released to underscore a threat to Russia's security and to underpin military operations," the official said. "This video, if released, could provide (Russian President Vladimir) Putin the spark he needs to initiate and justify military operations against Ukraine."

TASS news agency cited Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responding to reports that Russia will stage fabricated attacks by Ukraine as saying: "This is not the first report. Something similar was also said earlier. But nothing has come out."