On Friday, the Biden administration revealed it has information indicating Russia has planted operatives in eastern Ukraine to conduct a false-flag operation in order to provoke a Russian intervention.

CNN, which obtained the news from a U.S. official, added that the official claimed the U.S. “has evidence that the operatives are trained in urban warfare and in using explosives to carry out acts of sabotage against Russia’s own proxy forces,” adding, “The Russian military plans to begin these activities several weeks before a military invasion, which could begin between mid-January and mid-February. We saw this playbook in 2014 with Crimea.”

On Thursday, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan asserted, “Our intelligence community has developed information, which has now been downgraded, that Russia is laying the groundwork to have the option of fabricating the pretext for an invasion. We saw this playbook in 2014. They are preparing this playbook again and we will have, the administration will have, further details on what we see as this potential laying of the pretext to share with the press over the course of the next 24 hours.”