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The US has claimed Russia is planning to stage a fake Ukrainian attack that it would use to justify an invasion, BBC reported.

It alleged Moscow was likely to release a graphic video showing the attack on Russian territory or against Russian-speaking people in eastern Ukraine.

Russia denied it was planning to fabricate an attack, and the US did not provide evidence to support the claim.

The build-up of tens of thousands of Russian troops on Ukraine's borders has escalated fears of an invasion.

Moscow says they are there for military drills, but Ukraine and its Western allies remain concerned that Russia is planning to launch an assault.

"As part of this fake attack, we believe that Russia would produce a very graphic propaganda video, which would include corpses and actors that would be depicting mourners and images of destroyed locations," he said.

But senior US officials said the video was just one of several ideas Russia has to provide a pretext to invade its neighbour.

They added that the alleged plan was being revealed in an effort to dissuade Russia from invading.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded to the reports later on Thursday.

"This is not the first promise of its kind [to release details about Russian provocation]," he said. "Something similar was also said before, but nothing came of it."

Russia has repeatedly denied that it is planning an attack.

News of the alleged plot came a day after the US said it was sending more troops to eastern Europe to support allies in the Nato defensive alliance.

Russia said the move was "destructive" and showed that its concerns about Nato's eastward expansion were justified.

Also on Thursday, Nato expressed concerns that Russia was likely to deploy up to 30,000 troops - including special forces, fighter jets and short-range ballistic missiles - in Belarus, Ukraine's northern neighbour.

"This is the biggest Russian deployment there since the Cold War," Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said.

Rivalry between Russia and the US, which still possess the world's biggest nuclear arsenals, dates back to the Cold War. Ukraine was then a crucial part of the communist Soviet Union.

Diplomatic moves

Russian President Vladimir Putin is currently in the Chinese capital, Beijing, for the Winter Olympics, and on Friday met his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, for their first face-to-face meeting since June 2019, because of the pandemic.

The two nations have a close relationship - President Xi has previously praised Mr Putin as his "best friend", and it is widely expected that Russia will be looking for diplomatic support from China as tensions build with Ukraine and the West.

Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron will travel to Russia and Ukraine next week to try and de-escalate the tensions. He will meet Mr Putin in the Russian capital, Moscow, on Monday, then Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky the next day.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson was in Ukraine earlier this week in an effort to "avoid further bloodshed".

As per the suggestion of the ruling coalition, the government and the Election Commission have tentatively agreed to hold local elections in one phase on May 18.

The major political parties have already started preparing. But there could be plenty of political drama before the election-day. Speculations are already rife about election outcomes and positions of major parties.

In the past five years, there has been a lot of turbulence inside major parties. In 2018, the CPN-UML and the CPN (Maoist Center) united to form the Nepal Communist Party (NCP), but the Supreme Court in March 2021 voided the merger and revived the old parties. Madhav Kumar Nepal then went on to split the UML to form CPN (Unified Socialist), becoming the fourth largest parliamentary party.

Maoist chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ and CPN (Unified Socialist) leader Nepal have made it clear that they want a continuity of the ruling coalition under Nepali Congress until the elections. However, there is a strong voice within Congress that it should not ally with any of the leftist parties. The UML, meanwhile, wants to break the coalition and isolate Congress in order to retain the position of the largest party.

“As the parties have no new political agenda, the only way to win more seats is by cutting the votes of rival parties. So the smaller parties could play a vital role by splitting votes,” says Bishnu Dahal, a political analyst.

Similarly, in 2019, Baburam Bhattarai-led Naya Shakti Party and Upendra Yadav’s Federal Socialist Forum merged to form the Samajbadi Party Nepal. Then in April 2020, the party merged with the Mahanta Thakur and Rajendra Mahato-led Rastriya Janta Party Nepal to form Janta Samajbadi Party Nepal. But after little over a year of working together, the Thakur-Mahato faction broke off to form the Loktantrik Samajbadi Party Nepal. The effect of mergers and breakups in political parties is certain to reflect in poll results as well. 

Bibeksheel Sajha Party remains without representation at the local level, and it plans to change that this time around. Bibeksheel Chairman Rabindra Mishra recently changed the party’s line and is now pitching for return of monarchy and referendum on Hindu state. There are rumors of Bibeksheel forming an electoral alliance with the pro-monarchy Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) for local polls.

The two parties have already discussed the possibility, and the RPP’s newly elected chairman, Rajendra Lingden too seems keen on working together with like-minded forces, at least for the elections.

“This time, the parties will focus on defeating others rather than winning elections on their own strength,” Dahal says. “There is a likelihood of UML and Congress contesting alone while the remaining parties could form an electoral coalition against the Big Two, making it a three-way fight.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Beijing on Friday for the 2022 Winter Olympics and a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, bringing with him a deal to increase natural gas supplies to China amid rising tension with the West, Reuters reported.

Putin told Xi that Russia had prepared a new deal to supply China with an additional 10 billion cubic metres of natural gas, according to a broadcast of their talks aired in Moscow.

Russia, one of the global leaders in hydrocarbon supplies, has been strengthening its ties with China, the world's top energy consumer against the backdrop of Moscow's standoff with the West over Ukraine and other issues.

The broadcast aired in Moscow showed Xi and Putin, neither one wearing a mask, sitting opposite each across a large table in a Beijing state guesthouse, surrounded by masked aides.

"I would like to thank you for the invitation to the opening of the Olympic Games," Putin told Xi. "We know firsthand that this is a huge job. I am sure that our Chinese friends have done it brilliantly, as you always do when preparing such major events."

Xi said the meeting injected new vitality into the relationship, according to the report.

The Olympics, already transformed by the coronavirus pandemic and to be held within a strictly closed loop, have also been overshadowed by the threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The United States and some of its allies have announced a diplomatic boycott of the Games in protest at China's human rights record. China denies any abuses.

Earlier, China state television footage showed a jet flying with the Russian and Chinese flags. Next to it were jets with Mongolian and Serbian flags. Serbian president Aleksandar Vucic and Prime Minister L. Oyun-Erdene, of Mongolia, are expected to attend the opening ceremony later on Friday.

Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and the United Arab Emirates' Crown Prince Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan had also touched down, according to state media reports.

Russia and China coordinated their positions on Ukraine during a meeting between their foreign ministers, Wang Yi and Sergei Lavrov, in Beijing on Thursday, the Chinese foreign ministry said.

In response, the United States warned Chinese firms that they would face consequences if they sought to evade export controls imposed on Russia in the event of it invading Ukraine.

"We have an array of tools that we can deploy if we see foreign companies, including those in China, doing their best to backfill US export control actions, to evade them, to get around them," U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price told a regular news briefing.

Before Lavrov, Beijing had not received foreign political guests for almost two years as it tried to keep the coronavirus out.

Thousands of Russian troops have massed near the border of Ukraine, raising fears of an invasion, which Russia denies planning. Russia has asked NATO to bar Ukraine from joining and to pull out of eastern Europe.

The CK Raut-led Janamat Party has postponed its highway centric protests.

Issuing a statement on Friday, Chandan Kumar Singh, General Secretary of the Janamat Party, said that they decided to postpone the protests due to adverse weather.

The party has directed the leaders and cadres to stage protests in rural municipalities and municipalities instead of highways.

General Secretary Singh said that the party will bring the new protest programmes from February 13.