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>the Ukrainian government warned everyone the invasion was really going to happen Quite contrary, the Ukrainian government was publicly saying that it was all

>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 1y 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 1y 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 1y 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.
viraptor 1y ago
> Zelensky repeatedly said that the West was creating a panic. I still have no idea if it was serious, or a fake "look at us helpless and not preparing at all". It was reported in media that he was given early warnings and briefings from the US about the incoming attack. There are so many cases like that that were may never learn about for sure...
- llm_nerd 1y ago
  Ukraine kind of wasn't prepared at all. The US was screaming warnings and giving precise intel, but Ukraine's defence didn't seem to plan for an actual attack at all. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64664944 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64664944 It is just shocking incompetence by Russian forces that Kyiv wasn't taken in days. Russian units faced negligible resistance right to the outskirts of Kyiv, where their own lack of training, planning and logistics stalled their efforts. https://kyivindependent.com/opinion-russias-failure-to-take-kyiv-was-pure-luck/ https://kyivindependent.com/opinion-russias-failure-to-take-... Ukraine is now a potent military force and Zelensky is a bonafide hero, but they were in a profound state of denial and got incredibly lucky in those early days.

justin66 1y 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 1y 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 1y 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.

viraptor 1y ago

> Zelensky repeatedly said that the West was creating a panic. I still have no idea if it was serious, or a fake "look at us helpless and not preparing at all". It was reported in media that he was given early warnings and briefings from the US about the incoming attack. There are so many cases like that that were may never learn about for sure...

llm_nerd 1y ago
Ukraine kind of wasn't prepared at all. The US was screaming warnings and giving precise intel, but Ukraine's defence didn't seem to plan for an actual attack at all. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64664944 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64664944 It is just shocking incompetence by Russian forces that Kyiv wasn't taken in days. Russian units faced negligible resistance right to the outskirts of Kyiv, where their own lack of training, planning and logistics stalled their efforts. https://kyivindependent.com/opinion-russias-failure-to-take-kyiv-was-pure-luck/ https://kyivindependent.com/opinion-russias-failure-to-take-... Ukraine is now a potent military force and Zelensky is a bonafide hero, but they were in a profound state of denial and got incredibly lucky in those early days.