The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dmytro Kuleba, reported that Ukraine was warned about a possible Russian invasion as early as the fall of 2021. But then the Western partners did not provide any evidence of this.
He told about this in an interview with journalist Dmytro Gordon.
Kuleba stated that the first "bells" were back in September 2021 during a visit to the USA together with the head of the OP, Andriy Yermak.
"Andriy and I were at one meeting with the State Department, but not with the Secretary of State: he was not in Washington that day. And a person came, sat down, just like you, put a cup of coffee on the table and said: "Well, guys? Dig trenches." Thatʼs how I heard it for the first time," he told.
According to Kuleba, it happened in September. The Ukrainian side then asked for the data and facts on the basis of which the US made such conclusions, but they were not provided.
"But what was the problem about early autumn? They tell you that "we see that it is going to war", but after that there is a full stop, and you are not given any more information," explained the minister.
He says that from that moment on, the Russians did everything possible to provoke Ukraine to any aggressive actions. But the Ukrainian side did not give in. Partners also advised not to do this.
"And then, when October came, when there was already more information, I accepted it. I analyzed everything, compared all the facts — and decided that there will be a war. But I supposed that it will be a local war: in Donbas area," says Kuleba.
- We will remind you that on February 24, the Russian army began a full-scale invasion of the territory of Ukraine. Columns of the Russian military broke through the Ukrainian border from the side of Crimea, occupied Donbas, Luhansk, Kharkiv, Sumy and Chernihiv oblasts. Also, part of the Russian troops entered the Kyiv oblast from the territory of Belarus.