MOSCOW, February 3. /TASS/. Not for the first time have materials about Russia’s plans to "invade" Ukraine been published in the US, but nothing has followed afterwards, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday commenting on the statements in the US media about Moscow’s alleged plans to "fabricate" the Ukrainian attack as a pretext for an "invasion."

"This is not the first such promise. Earlier, similar things were also voiced. But nothing ever occurs," the press secretary said.

On Thursday, the New York Times newspaper referring to some unnamed representatives of the US administration, reported that Moscow was allegedly preparing a fabricated video with an attack by Ukrainian forces on civilians in Russia or the unrecognized republic of Donbass to provide a pretext for invading Ukraine. A similar publication was published by the Washington Post newspaper.

Concerns over Moscow’s alleged preparations for an invasion into Ukraine have been increasingly announced in the west and in Kiev recently. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov castigated these statements as an empty and groundless escalation of tension, emphasizing that Russia posed no threat to anyone. At the same time, the Kremlin press secretary did not exclude some possible provocations to justify such claims and warned that the attempts to resolve the Ukrainian conflict by force would carry extremely serious consequences.