If you want to justify invading another country, there is no better justification than to say that you were attacked by the nation you are invading.
The perfect example of this was the
Gleiwitz incident where Nazis used a “false flag” attack to justify invading Poland to their own people, the Germans.
This is evidently the same game that Putin is playing, leading up to the possible invasion of Ukraine. Not everyone needs to believe it, only the Russian people, and he has the media levers at his disposal to make that happen.
Some would call it “alternative facts,” others would call it rumors, but perhaps an event like the one above is best described as disinformation and propaganda.
Eric Holdeman is a contributing writer for Emergency Management magazine and is the former director of the King County, Wash., Office of Emergency Management.
