Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday laid out in stark detail for the United Nations Security Council actions the U.S. believes Russia could take to manufacture a crisis and justify an invasion of Ukraine, The Hill reported.

Blinken delivered the last-minute speech as the U.S. warns that Moscow is on the precipice of launching a war.

“Russia plans to manufacture a pretext for its attack,” Blinken said, adding the pretext could be a violent event that Russia will blame on Ukraine or an “outrageous accusation that Russia will level against the Ukrainian government.”

The secretary said this could take the form of a “fabricated so-called terrorist bombing inside Russia, invented discovery of a mass grave, a staged drone strike against civilians, or a fake, even a real attack using chemical weapons.” 

The secretary further said Russian state-run media is amplifying warnings of a potential attack on Russians and that in the event of a “fabricated” crisis, the Russian government may “theatrically convene emergency meetings” and declare it necessary to “defend Russian citizens or ethnic Russians in Ukraine.”

He added that Moscow’s attack plans include that “Russian missiles and bombs will drop across Ukraine, communications will be jammed, cyberattacks will shut down key Ukrainian institutions” and a ground invasion will “advance on key targets that have already been identified and mapped out in detailed plans.”

These plans include targeting the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, Blinken said, a city of 2.8 million people. He also said Russia “will target specific groups of Ukrainians.”

Blinken said he was sharing such a detailed assessment with the UN Security Council to deter Russia.

https://thehill.com/policy/international/594729-blinken-details-russian-military-plans-at-un-security-council-meeting