A Washington Post examination of the road to war in Ukraine, and Western efforts to unite to thwart the Kremlin’s plans, draws on extensive interviews with more than three dozen senior U.S., Ukrainian, European and NATO officials.
A months-long examination by The Washington Post of the road to war in Ukraine, including Western efforts to thwart the Kremlin’s plans, is based on extensive interviews with more than three dozen senior U.S., Ukrainian, European and NATO officials. Here are some key findings:The United States intelligence community penetrated multiple points of Russia’s political leadership, spying apparatus and military, and found Vladimir Putin preparing for a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
In the Oval Office in October 2021, President Biden’s top advisers presented him with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war plans for a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. U.S. intelligence agencies had used satellite imagery, intercepted communications and human sources to show that Putin was massing troops along Ukraine’s border with the aim of seizing the capital, Kyiv, and much of the country, leaving only a rump Ukrainian state in the west.
Biden was determined to rally NATO allies in the face of the impending invasion without provoking a direct conflict between Russia and the United States. Milley carried note cards in his briefcase encapsulating the U.S. interests and strategic objectives, as well as the high stakes.
Biden sent CIA Director William J. Burns to Moscow to deliver Putin a message: We know what you’re up to, and if you invade, there will be severe consequences. Burns delivered a personal letter from Biden, and he spoke to Putin by phone from an office in the Kremlin. The Russian leader had decamped to the resort city of Sochi during a coronavirus wave that placed Moscow under lockdown.Putin, in a now familiar diatribe, complained about NATO expansion and the illegitimacy of Ukraine’s government.
The Ukrainian leader worried that with his government out of the way and a Kremlin-backed regime installed, NATO powers would seek a negotiated settlement with Moscow over Ukraine. “The Western partners wanted to — I’m sure someone was really worried about what would happen to me and my family,” Zelensky said. “But someone probably wanted to just end things faster.
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