With evidence of multiple war crimes by Russia in Ukraine obtained and disclosed, rocket and strike assaults on civilian infrastructure and residential buildings among them, the Kremlin is seeking to fake mirror actions by Kyiv, which Moscow believes will give ground to go on with destroying civilian targets in Ukraine and create conditions for Russia to declare martial law and mobilization, as Belarus is forced to take part in the war. Having studied the messages by propaganda media and social networks, we believe the Kremlin is searching the grounds for the use of tactical nuclear weapons.
On the morning of July 3, Russian media claimed Belgorod was allegedly shelled with SS-21 Scarab A missiles, killing 5 people.
At the same time, the governor of the Kursk region said Russian air defense allegedly shot down two Ukrainian Strizh drones as they approached Kursk. No cases of using this UAV by Kyiv during the war in Ukraine were established, however, while the Strizh drone appeared when Russia reconnoitered the air defense system of Eastern and Central Eastern Europe this March.
As invasion of Ukraine started, Russia has been using the Tu-141 Strizh to make Ukrainian air defense deflect attention and reveal their positions.
Formally, Russia intended to use the shelling of Belgorod to cut off all media reports on the latest shelling of a residential building in Bilgorod-Dnistrovskyi (Odesa region) and a shopping mall in Kremenchuk. Russia seeks to reduce criticism and charges for attacking civilian targets and killing civilians in Ukraine.
For that, it resorts to staging the attacks by Ukrainian defense forces on similar targets in Russia.
That repeats the case of 1999, when the FSB, led by current Security Council head, Patrushev, staged a series of explosions in Buynaksk, Moscow (Guryanov Street and Kashirskoye Highway), and Volgodonsk. That operation gave the grounds for an armed invasion of Chechnya.
Photos from the site where the missile parts fell in Belgorod indicate the scene is false, as a part of SS-21 Scarab A upper stage was placed between the gate supports, where no signs of damage over a high fall are seen. Moscow has already used the SS-21 Scarab A missile on March 14, to stage Ukraine’s strike against Donetsk.
Other photos show residential buildings hit by the SA-22 Greyhound air defense system missiles, used by Russia and Belarus only. Operation errors by Russian air defense have been recorded more than once in recent years, including the cases when air defense systems struck themselves.
The shelling of Belgorod shows that, within a week, Russia is highly probable to stage the shelling of Belarus by Ukraine, with Russian subversion and reconnaissance groups that are in this country involved. Right after the operation, Russian military intelligence will show Minsk proof of Ukraine’s involvement, with remnants of a rocket part, American HIMARS probably, taken from the east of Ukraine and planted at the staging scene. Moscow believes that operation will serve to convince Lukashenko that Russian Foreign Intelligence Service and the GRU feed him with reliable information. That way, the Kremlin neutralizes the data Lukashenko gets from his own intelligence agencies, if it contradicts false information supplied by Russia.
Read also: Minsk joined Russia’s nuclear blackmail
