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> Putin actually invading Ukraine was a very unexpected move. Was it? The scale was surprising, but troop build ups were noted ahead of time and Russia had bee

> Putin actually invading Ukraine was a very unexpected move. Was it? The scale was surprising, but troop build ups were noted ahead of time and Russia had been fighting in Ukraine for many years. Am I misremembering?

megous 2y ago
Yes, even Russian soldiers were surprised when they were suddenly marching to Ukraine. Buildups were happening repeatedly in the past under the guise of exercises. Eg. here tanks and ~80k soldiers in 2018: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/15/world/europe/ukraine-russia-military-buildup.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/15/world/europe/ukraine-russ...
anonymars 2y ago
Very much so. The Biden administration was sounding the alarm, loudly, and the general vibe was, "well that wouldn't make any sense, there goes America crying wolf again like Iraq" Here was one example: https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-ukraine-invasion-predictions-wrong-intelligence/32275740.html https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-ukraine-invasion-predictions-... See also: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/21/why-ukrainians-dont-believe-in-war-with-russia-distrust-west https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/21/why-ukrainians-dont...
justin66 2y ago
You're not misremembering. The US government warned everyone the invasion was really going to happen, the Ukrainian government warned everyone the invasion was really going to happen, and the Russian government warned everyone the invasion was really going to happen. The mainstream media warned everyone the invasion was going to happen, and the financial markets responded. Some people don't have the sense to come in out of the rain.
- llm_nerd 2y ago
  >the Ukrainian government warned everyone the invasion was really going to happen Quite contrary, the Ukrainian government was publicly saying that it was all bluffing. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60174684 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60174684 Zelensky repeatedly said that the West was creating a panic. Ukraine's repelling of the attack was heroic and legendary, but the truth is that if it wasn't for the astonishing incompetence of the Russian assault, where there was a massive traffic jam almost all the way from Belarus to Kyiv, it really would have been a quickly conquered nation. >and the Russian government warned everyone the invasion was really going to happen But they didn't. Russia kept portraying the build-up as drills with Belarus. https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-crisis-putin-says-military-drills-purely-defensive-and-not-a-threat-as-western-leaders-warn-invasion-imminent-12545284 https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-crisis-putin-says-militar... Western intelligence predicted Russia's plans perfectly, but a lot of people were very in denial about it.
  - justin66 2y ago
    I'd forgotten about Zelensky's prewar media strategy. Whoops. Regarding Russia: did the strange televised meeting of Putin's war cabinet (whatever it would be called), wherein everyone went around the room and voted "yes" to invasion even though a couple of them looked like they were in a hostage video, happen before or after tanks rolled into Ukraine? In my mind that's a "prewar" thing but maybe I got the sequence of events wrong? (I'm finding it hard to google this even though it was a fairly important event. Weird.) > Western intelligence predicted Russia's plans perfectly I remember thinking the white house handled communications surrounding the invasion very well, kind of a rare foreign policy bright spot for them. Too bad it didn't make a difference.
    - llm_nerd 2y ago
      That weird meeting I think you're thinking of- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8B0mWzB4GOQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8B0mWzB4GOQ (I recalled it as well and with normal searching could not find it, even with date winnowing, but asking Gemini 2.5 Pro and it immediately gave me that resource) This meeting happened just before the invasion. Far too late for anyone to really do anything, and long after most of the "are they/aren't they?" discussions happened. Up until that point Russia was repeatedly denying their "special military operation". Just as they denied their invasion of Crimea and their little green men in the Donbas. As an aside, that absolutely bizarre security council meeting is virtually indistinguishable from the North Korea-style Trump administration meetings that we now see weekly, where it's a circle of embarrassingly laughable platitudes and servitudes by a cowed and pathetic administration. >I remember thinking the white house handled communications surrounding the invasion very well They did.
      - justin66 2y ago
        These are good comments and there's a lot more that could be said. > As an aside, that absolutely bizarre security council meeting is virtually indistinguishable from the North Korea-style Trump administration meetings that we now see weekly, where it's a circle of embarrassingly laughable platitudes and servitudes by a cowed and pathetic administration. To be fair there was a lot of this during the first Trump administration, only moreso near the end when plenty of the cabinet secretaries weren't real secretaries, just "acting" secretaries of various sorts. It's just that now they're all operating on that level.
- graemep 2y ago
  > Some people don't have the sense to come in out of the rain. Those people included almost all western governments who had blithely assumed Russia was not threat, did not react to the previous invasion (and some took the stance Russia had the support of the inhabitants of ethnically Russian areas), did not react to the invasion of Georgia, and generally just assumed it would be OK - which Russia took as a signal the west would be fine with an invasion of the rest of Ukraine.
  - justin66 2y ago
    Perhaps my impression was colored by the US government actually having a clear picture of what was about to happen. I won't defend Europe too much. It seems to me like Poland, the Nordics and the Baltics see Russia pretty clearly, but everything kind of falls apart the further away from Russia you get.

megous 2y ago

Yes, even Russian soldiers were surprised when they were suddenly marching to Ukraine. Buildups were happening repeatedly in the past under the guise of exercises. Eg. here tanks and ~80k soldiers in 2018: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/15/world/europe/ukraine-russia-military-buildup.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/15/world/europe/ukraine-russ...

anonymars 2y ago

Very much so. The Biden administration was sounding the alarm, loudly, and the general vibe was, "well that wouldn't make any sense, there goes America crying wolf again like Iraq" Here was one example: https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-ukraine-invasion-predictions-wrong-intelligence/32275740.html https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-ukraine-invasion-predictions-... See also: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/21/why-ukrainians-dont-believe-in-war-with-russia-distrust-west https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/21/why-ukrainians-dont...

justin66 2y ago

You're not misremembering. The US government warned everyone the invasion was really going to happen, the Ukrainian government warned everyone the invasion was really going to happen, and the Russian government warned everyone the invasion was really going to happen. The mainstream media warned everyone the invasion was going to happen, and the financial markets responded. Some people don't have the sense to come in out of the rain.

llm_nerd 2y ago
>the Ukrainian government warned everyone the invasion was really going to happen Quite contrary, the Ukrainian government was publicly saying that it was all bluffing. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60174684 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60174684 Zelensky repeatedly said that the West was creating a panic. Ukraine's repelling of the attack was heroic and legendary, but the truth is that if it wasn't for the astonishing incompetence of the Russian assault, where there was a massive traffic jam almost all the way from Belarus to Kyiv, it really would have been a quickly conquered nation. >and the Russian government warned everyone the invasion was really going to happen But they didn't. Russia kept portraying the build-up as drills with Belarus. https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-crisis-putin-says-military-drills-purely-defensive-and-not-a-threat-as-western-leaders-warn-invasion-imminent-12545284 https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-crisis-putin-says-militar... Western intelligence predicted Russia's plans perfectly, but a lot of people were very in denial about it.
- justin66 2y ago
  I'd forgotten about Zelensky's prewar media strategy. Whoops. Regarding Russia: did the strange televised meeting of Putin's war cabinet (whatever it would be called), wherein everyone went around the room and voted "yes" to invasion even though a couple of them looked like they were in a hostage video, happen before or after tanks rolled into Ukraine? In my mind that's a "prewar" thing but maybe I got the sequence of events wrong? (I'm finding it hard to google this even though it was a fairly important event. Weird.) > Western intelligence predicted Russia's plans perfectly I remember thinking the white house handled communications surrounding the invasion very well, kind of a rare foreign policy bright spot for them. Too bad it didn't make a difference.
  - llm_nerd 2y ago
    That weird meeting I think you're thinking of- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8B0mWzB4GOQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8B0mWzB4GOQ (I recalled it as well and with normal searching could not find it, even with date winnowing, but asking Gemini 2.5 Pro and it immediately gave me that resource) This meeting happened just before the invasion. Far too late for anyone to really do anything, and long after most of the "are they/aren't they?" discussions happened. Up until that point Russia was repeatedly denying their "special military operation". Just as they denied their invasion of Crimea and their little green men in the Donbas. As an aside, that absolutely bizarre security council meeting is virtually indistinguishable from the North Korea-style Trump administration meetings that we now see weekly, where it's a circle of embarrassingly laughable platitudes and servitudes by a cowed and pathetic administration. >I remember thinking the white house handled communications surrounding the invasion very well They did.
    - justin66 2y ago
      These are good comments and there's a lot more that could be said. > As an aside, that absolutely bizarre security council meeting is virtually indistinguishable from the North Korea-style Trump administration meetings that we now see weekly, where it's a circle of embarrassingly laughable platitudes and servitudes by a cowed and pathetic administration. To be fair there was a lot of this during the first Trump administration, only moreso near the end when plenty of the cabinet secretaries weren't real secretaries, just "acting" secretaries of various sorts. It's just that now they're all operating on that level.
graemep 2y ago
> Some people don't have the sense to come in out of the rain. Those people included almost all western governments who had blithely assumed Russia was not threat, did not react to the previous invasion (and some took the stance Russia had the support of the inhabitants of ethnically Russian areas), did not react to the invasion of Georgia, and generally just assumed it would be OK - which Russia took as a signal the west would be fine with an invasion of the rest of Ukraine.
- justin66 2y ago
  Perhaps my impression was colored by the US government actually having a clear picture of what was about to happen. I won't defend Europe too much. It seems to me like Poland, the Nordics and the Baltics see Russia pretty clearly, but everything kind of falls apart the further away from Russia you get.