Russian MoD: Kiev Plotting Large-Scale Provocation in Kramatorsk to Accuse Moscow of 'War Crimes'

The Russian Defense Ministry explained that the goal behind Ukraine's planned provocation is to accelerate arms deliveries and get the West to supply Kiev with new weapons.

Kiev is plotting a large-scale provocation in Kramatorsk, Donetsk People's Republic, in order to accuse Russia of "war crimes," the Russian Defense Ministry said on Sunday.

According to multiple sources, the Kiev regime has planned out a controlled explosion at medical facilities in Kramatorsk to then claim that Russia conducted a deliberate strike on civilian infrastructure, the MoD explained.

Accompanied by agents of the Security Service of Ukraine, Western journalists have already arrived in Kramatorsk to cover the upcoming provocation, the Defense Ministry revealed. Western media would present the explosions as "yet another Russian crime" that requires Ukraine's allies to speed up long-range rocket deliveries to Kiev, the ministry added.

The staff of medical facilities, where the provocation is planned, has been evacuated, the ministry added.

This wouldn't be the first provocation carried out by Ukrainian forces in Kramatorsk. On April 8, 2022, Ukrainian troops fired a Tochka-U missile at the railway station in Kramatorsk, killing 50 people and injuring 87 others. While Ukrainian authorities and their Western sponsors were quick to point the finger at Russia, Moscow pointed out that the Tochka-U ballistic missiles, fragments of which were found scattered near the railway station in Kramatorsk, are used only by Ukrainian forces.

At the time, the Russian Defense Ministry stressed that Ukrainian claims about a "Russian rocket" hitting the Kramatorsk railway station were a "provocation," and that the purpose of Kiev's attack on the site was to disrupt mass evacuation and to use local residents as a human shield.