Todayʼs roundup features one feature ― an exclusive, detailed story from The Washington Post about the events leading up to the February 24th large-scale invasion. The article was written on the basis of more than 40 interviews with high-ranking officials of the EU, NATO and Ukraine. The publication also appealed to the Kremlin, but received no response. The presentation of events in the material takes place in chronological order, starting from October 2021 and ending on the morning of February 24, when the attack began. The report is structured in 14 chapters, each of which describes how the confidence of the parties that the Kremlin would attack was strengthened.
US intelligence has been closely monitoring the build-up of Russian troops along the borders of Ukraine, which began in the spring of 2021. In October, the highest ranks in the state were already convinced that Putin would carry out a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the publication writes. According to extremely detailed intelligence, Russia was to attack from the north and sought to encircle Kyiv from the east and west, moving south through the space between the Exclusion Zone and the swamps around the Chornobyl nuclear power plant. At the same time, Russian troops were to advance from the occupied east of Ukraine and from the Crimea. It was planned that this would take several weeks, after which the Russians would regroup and launch an offensive to the west. The 69-year-old Putin did not have much time left to implement this plan, because Ukraine was confidently moving towards democratic development and the Western economic, political and cultural orbit. So, in October, US leaders were sure of the Kremlinʼs plans, and Bidenʼs response was as follows: first, to send CIA director William J. Burns to Moscow to warn about the consequences of the invasion of Ukraine, and second, to ensure the support of NATO allies.
WP describes in detail the US strategy and the steps taken to help Ukraine and intelligently counter Russia. The first conversation with Volodymyr Zelensky took place soon after, in November: US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken met with him, who describes the Ukrainian leader as a serious, thoughtful and stoic person, and their conversation as difficult. Given the previous threats from the Russian Federation, Zelensky was skeptical of the US warning. Later, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Dmytro Kuleba, said that detailed intelligence about the US invasion was not provided until a few days before February 24. Several US officials told the paper that intelligence had been shared from the beginning. On the one hand, the Americans were surprised by the skepticism of the Ukrainians, on the other hand, the Ukrainians did not understand the public warnings about the war from the US without any details, which harmed the economy of Ukraine. The publication described in detail the US strategy for widely publicizing plans to attack the Russian Federation ― its causes and results, and about the difficult decision for the leaders of Ukraine not to create panic among the population, not to introduce restrictions on the withdrawal of money, not to call for evacuation. According to Volodymyr Zelensky, panic would mean defeat: without people and money, Ukraine would not be able to resist. The President applied the same logic to his family, which remained in Ukraine. According to Zelensky, some calls to evacuate from the Western allies were aimed at a quick end to the conflict, even at the cost of Ukraineʼs defeat.
The publication writes about the incredulous reaction of EU leaders to warnings about Putinʼs plans, especially from France and Germany. For example, French President Emmanuel Macron had his doubts to the last, and even on February 18 expressed hopes for avoiding the crisis. Looking back, writes the publication from the words of European officials, it was difficult to fully believe in plans that looked like madness ― even more so in plans reported by the intelligence of a country that only recently failed in Afghanistan.
The material also mentions the last conversations with high officials of the Russian Federation before February 24. On January 21, Blinken personally spoke for the last time with Sergey Lavrov, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation. After the official meeting, Blinken asked Lavrov to speak in private and asked if this invasion really had anything to do with NATO and the "military threat of Russia," or if it was all caused by Putinʼs obsession that Ukraine is part of Russia. Lavrov left this question unanswered, simply leaving the room. A similar conversation took place between the Minister of Defense of Great Britain, Ben Wallace, and Sergei Shoigu. To the warning that Ukraine would fight back and Russia would suffer greatly, Shoigu replied: "We know how to suffer like no one else."