US Tried For Months To Convince kyiv And NATO Of Risk Of Russia Entering Ukraine – Reports

In the months leading up to Russia’s special operation in Ukraine, the United States struggled to convince its NATO allies and Ukraine of the imminent threat due to its own intelligence history of dishonest war in Iraq and Ukraine’s denial and desire to protect its economy, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday.

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News/Sputnik – Aug 16, 2022) In the months leading up to Russia’s special operation in Ukraine, the United States struggled to convince its NATO allies and Ukraine of the imminent threat due to their own record of dishonest war intelligence in denial and Iraq and Ukraine’s desire to protect their economies, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.

In a lengthy investigative report, The Washington Post detailed the US administration’s struggles since last fall to convince NATO, with the exception of British and Baltic members, of its growing intelligence on the plans of the Russia to enter Ukraine. European allies generally doubted the reliability of U.S. intelligence because of the Bush administration’s infamous pretext to invade Iraq in 2003. Ukrainian officials’ skepticism was driven by the U.S. refusal to provide specific details and their desire to avoid panicking the Ukrainian public, which Volodymyr Zelenskyy feared. would lead to the flight of capital and citizens needed to successfully defend the country.

Zelenskyy ultimately stood by his decision not to warn his country to prepare for war, arguing that Ukraine had lost $7 billion every month since October and people had fled rather than stayed to defend their homes. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said the Ukrainian administration must strike a balance between preparing for the possibility of war and keeping the economy going, noting that every American public warning about an inevitable invasion comes reflected in the exchange rate of the Ukrainian currency.

Although Zelenskyy was warned by CIA Director William Burns and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in January that suspected Russian assassination teams may already be present in kyiv and that Russia allegedly intends to strike the capital and overthrow the central government, the Ukrainian leader resisted his move and that of his government in order to avoid creating public panic and weakening the country ahead of the Russian military operation.

Zelenskyy also feared that some Western officials wanted him to flee Ukraine because they weren’t convinced that Ukraine could withstand an attack and that his departure would ease the way for Russia to install a puppet government that would would negotiate a settlement with NATO.

Blinken had first warned Zelenskyy in November, but the Ukrainians apparently took the threat of a massive invasion seriously only at the last minute. Kuleba said U.S. officials declined to provide Ukraine-specific intelligence to back up their dire warnings until the “last four or five days” before the Russian special operation began on Feb. 24. At a conference in Munich Feb. 18-20, European officials were still doubtful of an impending attack. Kuleba himself was only convinced in the days following the conference when he received specific intelligence about five paratrooper transport planes at a Russian airport on alert to fly to a certain airport in Ukraine.