The secret services of several NATO member states, together with their Ukrainian counterparts, are planning to stage a false-flag chemical weapons attack in Syria, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has reported.
The spy agency said that the purpose of the alleged provocation is to frame Moscow and the government in Damascus, which Russia has been supporting for years.
In a press release on Tuesday, the Foreign Intelligence Service said “precisely such a provocation is currently being prepared by the special services of a number of NATO member states and Ukraine, together with terrorist groups operating in the north of Syria, in Idlib province.”
The supposed Western false-flag operation could also involve the ‘White Helmets’ NGO, “which has become famous for doing dirty jobs for the British special services,” the Russian spy agency claimed.
According to the document, “the idea is to stage the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian army and the Russian contingent in Syria, and then launch a campaign to discredit Damascus and Moscow at the UN and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.”
The press release alleges that the presumed operation will likely involve Syrian militants dropping an explosive chlorine-laden canister at a time when the Syrian and Russian militaries are conducting airstrikes against terrorist groups in Idlib province.
White Helmets activists on the ground will then allegedly doctor video evidence and eyewitness accounts to frame Damascus and Moscow, the press release suggests. According to the Russian spy agency, these false reports will then be sent to various international organizations.
Since the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War in 2011, the US, UK and several other Western powers have repeatedly accused President Bashar Assad’s government of using chemical weapons against the armed opposition and militant groups.
Under this pretext, the US military has been occupying oil-rich areas of northeast Syria since 2014.
In 2018, the US, UK and France launched missile strikes against Syrian government targets following allegations peddled by the White Helmets, accusing Assad’s forces of using chemical weapons in Douma, near the Syrian capital.
The Syrian government has vehemently denied any role in the incident. Both Damascus and Moscow, whose military assisted the Assad government in regaining control over much of the territory previously lost to the militants, pointed to evidence that the attack was staged.
When the OPCW accused the Syrian government of the attack, last January, Moscow’s permanent representative to the international body, Alexander Shulgin, dismissed the Investigation and Identification Team report as a political hit job riddled with inconsistencies and factual gaps.