Operastiya Pod Lozhnym Flagom
False Flag Operation

The term "false flag" [falshivyy flag] originates from naval warfare, where ships would hoist the flag of a different nation to deceive their opponents. A false flag operation [operastiya pod lozhnym flagom] refers to a deceptive action carried out by a group or government, where the perpetrators disguise themselves as another entity or group to create the appearance that a different party is responsible [go watch rerusn of the Misson Impossible TV series]. In this sense it is distinct from a covert operation, intended simply to cover the identity of the actual sponsor, or a clandestine operation, intended to hide the fact of the existience of the operation. Americans do clandestine and covert operations, the Russians do more elaborate and elegant false flag operations.

In the context of modern geopolitics and warfare, a false flag operation typically involves a government or intelligence agency orchestrating an event and making it appear as though it was conducted by a different party, such as a terrorist group or a rival nation. The purpose of such operations can vary, including justifying military actions, influencing public opinion, or advancing a particular political agenda.

False flag operations are often controversial and highly secretive, making it challenging to definitively identify or prove their occurrence. While there have been numerous historical allegations and theories surrounding specific events, it is important to approach such claims with critical thinking, considering the available evidence and expert analysis. It's worth noting that false flag operations, when proven, can have significant consequences, including erosion of public trust, increased tension between nations, and potential violations of international law.

Russia has long conducted such “false flag” operations to portray itself or its partners as victims, evade responsibility, sow confusion and create a pretext for war. Russia’s false flag operations date back decades and take many forms. In 1939, the Soviet Union shelled its own troops outside the Soviet village of Mainila near Finland. It then blamed Finland for the attack and invaded its neighbor in violation of the two countries’ nonaggression pact. In 2008, Russia sent unmarked soldiers to stir unrest in Georgia. When Georgia’s government responded, Russia invaded. And in 2014, Russian special forces entered Ukraine pretending to be local self-defense forces and seized government buildings, leading to Russia’s occupation of Crimea.

A false flag operation is an act done with the intent to hide the true source of responsibility and place the blame on a second party. Operations under a "false (false, alien) flag" designate secretly prepared provocative actions that are carried out "on behalf of others" in order to convince the world community that this or that action was carried out by certain states (political forces, organizations), for which the real organizers trying to point out as the initiators.

In a more general sense, this can be defined as actions (usually of a negative nature) attributed to other persons or other group of persons. And to put it in everyday language, a false flag operation is a set-up when they commit a crime themselves, and another is declared guilty. False flag tactics have been used for political purposes for centuries and continue to be used to this day.

Blaming an act, such as a crime, on someone else can be beneficial for two reasons: 1. if they want to frame this someone, that is if blaming this other subject is an end in itself. Then it is a way to eliminate opponents; 2. if the crime is necessary, that is, if the end in itself is not the accusation of a particular subject, but the crime itself. Then they put their blame on someone else just to divert suspicion from yourself, and any suitable candidate can be chosen as the scapegoat. As a suitable convenient candidate to blame their crime, they usually choose someone who has a bad reputation and whose involvement in such a crime people can easily believe, especially if this person has already been seen in such actions. And sometimes they even disguise their crime under the signature of a specific criminal, in order to later attribute their crime to him.

Russians claim that provocations “under a false flag” are a typical way of action for Western states, which they have repeatedly used. In particular, the operation under a "foreign flag" in the form of an informational provocation was supposedly carried out during the migration crisis that arose on the border of Belarus and the EU in 2021. In this typical "false flag" operation, which was supposedly carried out by the American intelligence services, the Poles acted as executors to accuse Belarus of pursuing an aggressive policy towards Afghan refugees. The Polish authorities supposedly provoked refugees on the Polish-Belarusian border to break through the border, where the Poles met them with water cannons and tear gas. However, these moments of clashes were not covered in the Polish media, which showed only the aggressiveness of the refugees, claiming that Belarusians and Russians were pushing them to the Polish border.

Operations carried during peace-time by civilian organisation, as well as covert government agencies, may by extension be called false flag operations if they seek to hide the real organisation behind an operation. The name "false flag" has its origins in naval warfare where the use of a flag other than the belligerent's true battle flag as a ruse de guerre, before engaging an enemy, has long been acceptable. Such operations are also acceptable in certain circumstances in land warfare, to deceive enemies in similar ways providing that the deception is not perfidious and all such deceptions are discarded before opening fire upon the enemy.

False flag operations are carried out during times of war, counter-insurgency operations, and other occasions. The origin of the term is due to the fact that in the past in the Caribbean, English corsairs attacked Spanish ships and colonies under the flag of France, using the fact that France was an ally of Spain, in order to provoke a conflict between Spain and France.

The most striking examples of false flag operations are the burning of the Reichstag on February 27, 1933. In the burning building of the Reichstag on the day of the fire, the Dutchman Marinus van der Lubbe, a former independent communist, was detained. Hitler, Goebbels, Vice Chancellor Franz von Papen and Prince Heinrich Günther arrived on the scene. There they were met by Hermann Goering, who headed the Prussian police and at the same time was the chairman of the Reichstag. Hitler claimed that the Reichstag was set on fire by the communists, and that this was allegedly the signal for the start of a communist coup. What happened next is history.

A well known example of such an operation was the attack on the radio station in Gleiwitz, also known as the Gleiwitz provocation or operation "Canned food" (German: Aktion Konserve) - a mock attack by Poland on a German radio station in the city of Gleiwitz, carried out by the SS on August 31, 1939 as part of a large-scale "Operation Himmler" to create a pretext for a German attack on Poland.

The essence of such operations is simple - it allows the aggressor to expose himself as a victim, and vice versa. By accusing the future victim of committing a crime against his own citizens, the aggressor removed responsibility from himself. These incidents are actions by the attacking side itself to justify its aggressive intentions.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, there has been at least one other incident whose circumstances have long been viewed as a possible “false flag operation”: the 1999 apartment bombings that led to the Second Chechen War and, according to many Russian experts and activists cleared the way for Putin to the presidency. The suspicious events surrounding these bombings lead many researches to conclude that they were false flag operations perpetrated by the FSB, the successor of the Committee for State Security (KGB), as an excuse to resume military activities in Chechnya and bring Vladimir Putin and the FSB to power. Litvinenko, who authored a book which contained information describing the apartment bombings as false flag operations, would eventually die of radiation sickness.

Western officials have been wary of media reports of Ukraine's involvement in the bombings that destroyed the Nord Stream gas pipelines in 2022, Russia cut off gas supplies through the Nord Stream 1 gas pipelines, which had been in operation since 2011. The Nord Stream 2 pipelines, due to open in 2022, were blocked by German regulators months before Russia's invasion of Ukraine. the Financial Times writes . Representatives from NATO, the EU and Sweden called for caution over allegations of attacks on pipelines connecting Russia to Western Europe, and German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius on Wednesday did not rule out that it could be a so-called false flag operation. “There is a version that this could be a so-called false flag operation. This is not the first time in the history of such events,” he said.

Russian state hackers have disguised themselves as operatives of Iran’s regime or the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) to evade responsibility. In 2017, Russia’s military launched a ransomware attack against Ukrainian businesses. While the attack was disguised to look like the work of profiteers rather than state actors, a joint investigation by Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States found the Kremlin responsible, according to Wired magazine.

The concept of "false flag operation" is widely used by the pro-Kremlin disinformation media as a method of disinformation. Pre-emptive lies work best, as they pave the way for new conspiracy theories and impunity if such an attack actually takes place. The concept of "false flag operations" is a common method of fueling unsubstantiated conspiracy claims.

Searching for the keywords "false flag operation" turns up hundreds of results on the South Front website: Ukrainians , Israelis , Americans, Syrian opposition groups, villain viziers in Trump's cabinet and the UK government . South Front described the Russian attack on flight MH17 as a "false flag operation," as did the GRU poisoning of the Skripals and the attack on the World Trade Center in New York in 2001.

Concerns that Russia may conduct a false flag operation in Ukraine rose as Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has amassed more than 100,000 troops along Ukraine’s border and promoted false narratives that Ukraine is seeking to provoke a conflict. “We have information that indicates Russia has already pre-positioned a group of operatives to conduct a false flag operation in Eastern Ukraine,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said 14 January 2022. “The operatives are trained in urban warfare and in using explosives to carry out acts of sabotage against Russia’s own proxy forces.”

Deputy Political Counselor Lewis Gitter stated to the OSCE Permanent Council, Vienna May 20, 2022 "the Department of Defense’s Cooperative Threat Reduction’s (CTR) disease surveillance, biosafety, and biosecurity work .... began its biological work with Ukraine to secure illegal biological weapons left in the Soviet successor states after the USSR fell.... Russia’s long track record of accusing others of the violations it itself is perpetrating, or plans to perpetrate, raises the possibility that the Kremlin may be laying the predicate for a false flag operation using biological or chemical weapons."

Russia was creating conditions for a false flag operation on the border of the Chernihiv region and in Transnistria, analysts at the Institute for the Study of War said 23 February 2023. The operation in northern Ukraine may aim to draw Belarus into the war and divert Ukrainian forces from the east. The operation in Transnistria may be aimed at distorting the words of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky about impending Russian provocations in Moldova, experts say. Analysts note that in the area of the border with the Chernihiv region, the movement of military equipment without identification marks was recorded, accompanied by military men allegedly dressed in Ukrainian military uniforms.

The purpose of the false flag operation here may be to accuse Ukraine of violating the territorial integrity of Belarus. Thus, Russia may try to draw the Belarusian army into a war with Ukraine. Last week, Alexander Lukashenko said that Belarus would enter the war only if attacked by Ukraine, analysts remind. The second possible goal of such an operation is to weaken the defense of Ukraine in the east of the country, forcing Ukraine to maintain a large number of army formations in the north. This may be necessary for the Russian Federation as part of the upcoming counteroffensive, analysts write. However, experts still consider an attack by Belarus or the Russian Federation on the northern regions of Ukraine unlikely.

In addition, the Russian Federation created conditions for conducting an operation under a false flag in Transnistria. The Russian Defense Ministry announced 23 February 2023 that Ukraine was preparing to invade Transnistria. "The Kyiv regime has stepped up preparations for the invasion of the Transnistrian Moldavian Republic," the statement said. The defence ministry claimed the "invasion" would be launched "in response to an alleged offensive by Russian troops from the territory of Transnistria." The Russian Defense Ministry claimed that Ukrainian troops were massing at the border with Moldova's breakaway region.