The US on Thursday accused Russia of staging false flag operations around besieged Ukrainian ports to justify attacks in the Black Sea.
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Washington had downgraded and declassified information about a Russian-released video of “the detection and detonation of what they claimed was a Ukrainian sea mine”.
US President Joe Biden's administration believes Moscow has also laid several sea mines around Ukrainian port cities for use in future “false flag” attacks.
“We believe that this is rather a co-ordinated effort to justify any attacks against civilian ships in the Black Sea, and then blame them on Ukraine in what we would consider … a false flag operation,” Mr Kirby told reporters.
He added that Washington believes Russian forces may “expand their targeting of Ukrainian grain facilities to include attacks against civilian shipping in the Black Sea”.
The claims come as the Kremlin bombards Ukrainian port cities such as Odesa and tension escalates in the Black Sea.
Russia on Monday withdrew from a deal that had allowed the safe passage of about 33 million tonnes of food from Ukraine through the Black Sea, about half of it to developing countries.
Following its departure from the deal, Moscow said that any ships travelling to Ukraine's Black Sea ports will be suspected of carrying military cargo.
The warning comes after Kyiv said it was setting up a temporary shipping route to try to continue exporting grain.
Mr Kirby had harsh words for Moscow, blaming Russian President Vladimir Putin for the grain crisis the war in Ukraine has sparked.
“That suspension is going to exacerbate global hunger … Russia has now spent three straight nights striking and bombing Ukrainian ports cities, destroying agricultural infrastructure, and quite frankly, tens of thousands, some 60,000 tonnes of grain,” he added.
The announcement comes alongside new US designations of more than 120 Russian companies, as well as several from Kyrgyzstan, over alleged contributions to the war in Ukraine.
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As the war in Ukraine approaches the 500-day mark, 'The National' looks back at the conflict. All photos: AP -
Ukrainian soldiers cover their ears to protect from Russian tank shelling in a shelter on the front line in the Zaporizhzhia region in July -
A cemetery in evening sunlight near Lviv in July -
Flooded streets in Kherson in June after the walls of the Kakhovka dam collapsed -
Tetiana with her pets, Tsatsa and Chunya, in her house that was flooded when the Kakhovka dam in Kherson was breached -
Young cadets sing the national anthem during a graduation ceremony at a cadet lyceum in Kyiv in June -
Bakhmut in April, the site of the heaviest battles in the Donetsk region -
A message on a mirror reads 'Ukraine will prevail' in a badly damaged school in Kharkiv in February -
Ukrainian servicemen in position close to the border with Belarus in February -
Hospital staff in Kherson with orphaned children at the regional hospital maternity ward in November 2022 -
A sniper unit aims at Russian positions in the Kherson region during an operation in November 2022 -
Ukrainian artillerymen fire at Russian positions near Bakhmut in November 2022 -
A Ukrainian serviceman near Oskil village in October 2022 -
Funeral workers carry the coffin of an unidentified civilian who died in the Bucha community during the Russian occupation period in February-March 2022 -
Cadets practise with gas masks in a bomb shelter on the first day of school at a cadet lyceum in Kyiv, Ukraine, in September -
A young girl with her dog waves goodbye to her grandparents from an evacuation train leaving Pokrovsk in August 2022 -
A child looks up at a building destroyed during attacks in Irpin in May 2022 -
An elderly patient boards a medical evacuation train in Pokrovsk in May 2022 -
Nila Zelinska holds a doll belonging to her granddaughter that she found in her destroyed house in Potashnya, on the outskirts of Kyiv, in May 2022 -
Residents shelter in the city subway of Kharkiv in May 2022 -
Destroyed Russian tanks in Bucha, April 2022 -
A family fleeing the village of Ruska Lozova in April 2022 arrive in their shrapnel-riddled car at a screening point in Kharkiv -
Smoke fills the air after shelling in Odesa in April -
Yehor, 7, with a wooden toy rifle next to destroyed Russian military vehicles near Chernihiv in April 2022 -
Security Service of Ukraine servicemen enter a building during an operation to arrest suspected Russian collaborators in Kharkiv in April 2022 -
A Ukrainian soldier during a pick-up game of football in Irpin in April 2022 -
The partially abandoned town of Chernobyl in April 2022 -
Ruslan Mishanin, 36, bids farewell to his nine-year-old daughter as the train with his family leaves Odesa for Poland in April -
Halyna Falko, 52, talks to reporters in March 2022 while looking at the destruction caused to her house near Brovary after a Russian attack -
Anti-tank barricades on a street in preparation for a possible Russian offensive in Odesa in March 2022 -
A man recovering items from a burning shop after a Russian attack in Kharkiv in March 2022 -
Ukrainians under a destroyed bridge as they as they cross the Irpin river on the outskirts of Kyiv in March 2022
