> They were downplayed and not talked about much in the mainstream The western military intelligence communities were aware and had warned about Russian mobili

> They were downplayed and not talked about much in the mainstream The western military intelligence communities were aware and had warned about Russian mobilization for months. They were downplayed only by far-right voices in the west that were invested in building up Putin as an effective authoritarian against the slow-moving "woke" bureaucrats of the EU and the US Democrats.