The alarmist tone of recent tit-for-tat reports from the war in Ukraine has refocused attention on so-called “false flag operations” and their legality under international law.
At the beginning of March, Ukraine dismissed as “provocation” a Russian claim that Ukrainian “terrorists” or “sabotage groups” were behind a series of disputed attacks and exchanges of fire in Russia’s Kursk and Bryansk regions, near the Ukrainian frontier.
Overnight on March 9-10, Russia launched a barrage of 81 missiles against targets all over Ukraine, including six hypersonic missiles, labelling them retribution for those earlier attacks.
