MOSCOW, November 22. /TASS/. Russia clearly sees the West’s intentional media crusade to paint Moscow as a threat to Ukraine's political settlement, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday.

"We are witnessing a deliberate smear campaign in the media. We see that Bloomberg [news agency] is being employed as a mouthpiece, so to speak, to disseminate fake news and some American newspapers are involved in this process," the Russian presidential spokesman said, replying to a corresponding question.

"We see tension being whipped up and once again another ploy to paint Russia as some country that is jeopardizing the settlement process," Peskov said.

The Kremlin press secretary did not rule out that this crusade was just a disguise to cover up "the aggressive aims that Kiev may be nurturing."

"This implies aggressive [intents] regarding the possible desire to solve the problem of the southeast by military methods," Peskov pointed out.

The US-based news agency Bloomberg earlier reported, citing several sources that officials from the Biden administration held a briefing for European colleagues to express their concerns over Russia’s alleged preparations for an invasion into Ukraine. As the news agency claimed, Washington’s assessments of Russia’s plans were based on some secret data that only the United States possessed. However, the US administration refused to disclose this information to its European partners.