The Guardian investigation: how the authorities put Ukraine under attack in 2022

Source: Author’s Facebook page

Zelensky put the entire country under attack in 2022. Zaluzhny tried to prepare for an invasion despite Zelensky’s resistance. The Guardian’s Sean Walker’s great investigation is worth reading in full. Link to the original in the comments.

But it is obvious that the painstaking research of the British journalist is destroying the plans of the president’s office to blame Zaluzhny and his team for the failure of the defense in February 2022 and the loss of territories in the south and Donbas. It is becoming increasingly difficult for OP manipulators like Sergei Leshchenko and Dmitry Lytvyn to turn reality upside down. The truth will still pierce the blatant lies of Zelensky’s mercenaries.

Here are quotes from the article:

About the warning to Zelensky:

“We essentially said, ‘We’re going to continue. You’ll see the intelligence.’ This is not a normal warning – this is very serious. Trust us,” one US official said after a briefing in Kyiv.

William Burns flew to Kyiv to personally warn the president about what the CIA believed was about to happen.

“They always told me that this would definitely happen,” the Ukrainian intelligence officer recalled of meetings with CIA representatives in Washington. “And every time they asked me, ‘Where are you going to take the president? What’s Plan B?’” “I told them there was no Plan B.”

On Zelensky’s position on the invasion:

Zelenskyy has for months dismissed increasingly urgent warnings from the Americans as panic-mongering.

In a video message, he said he “sincerely believes” there will be no major war in 2022.

“Breathe deeply, calm down, and don’t run around buying food and matches,” he told citizens.

“In recent weeks, intelligence leaders have begun to understand the situation, the mood has changed. But the political leadership simply refused to accept it until the very end,” said one of the American intelligence officials.

In the second week of February, Ukraine’s border guards intercepted a new piece of evidence that would prove decisive: communications between the commander of a Chechen unit stationed in Belarus and Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin’s designated head of Chechnya. The commander reported to Kadyrov that his men were on the ground and would soon be in Kyiv. Zelensky was shown the recording, but he remained unconvinced, according to a well-informed source. The dominant view at Security Council meetings was that a full-scale invasion was unlikely and that the buildup of forces was about economic and political pressure.

“Many of us were feeling anxious, but it seems everyone decided that the safest thing to do was to agree with the president,” said one senior official.

Several Ukrainian sources said Zelensky was convinced that a major invasion was unthinkable, having been convinced of this by Andriy Yermak, the head of the President’s Office and his closest confidant. Russia, according to Yermak, was operating in a “gray,” denied zone of hybrid warfare and would not embark on a major, dramatic invasion that would permanently destroy relations with the West.

Yermak, who declined to be interviewed for this story, was one of the few Ukrainian officials who had regular contact with Russian officials. He spoke frequently with Putin’s deputy chief of staff, Dmitry Kozak, as part of the long-stalled negotiations over Donbas.

If Kozak reassured Yermak that the American “military panic” was ridiculous, it was likely because he believed it himself. The CIA estimated that only a handful of non-military officials knew the details of Putin’s plans until very late. Kozak remained in the dark, as did Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Putin’s longtime spokesman Dmitry Peskov, two well-connected Russian sources said.

About Zaluzhny and martial law

Valeriy Zaluzhny was disappointed that the president did not want to impose martial law, which would have allowed him to regroup troops and prepare for defense.

The commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Valeriy Zaluzhny, was irritated that Zelensky did not want to impose martial law, which would allow the troops to regroup and prepare battle plans. “You are going to fight Mike Tyson, and the only fight in your life was a pillow fight with your younger brother. This is a one in a million chance, and you have to be ready,” he said.

Without official permission, Zaluzhny did what little he could. In mid-January, he and his wife moved from a ground-floor apartment to an official residence inside the General Staff complex, for security reasons and to work longer hours. In February, another general recalled, “tabletop” exercises were held among the army leadership to play out various invasion scenarios. These included an attack on Kyiv and an even worse scenario than what actually happened: the Russians seizing a corridor along Ukraine’s western border to cut off supplies from the Allies. But without a sanction from above, these plans remained only on paper; any significant troop movement would be illegal and difficult to conceal.

At Ukrainian army headquarters on the final evening before the attack, Zaluzhny and his generals tried to implement a few last-ditch measures. Mines were laid on the bottom of the Black Sea to thwart a possible naval landing in Odessa, and some units were ordered to take more strategic positions. “All of this was completely forbidden. If the invasion had not happened, there could have been legal cases against us, but most commanders agreed: there was no choice, and they did it,” said one general.

“Martial law should have been introduced in January or at the latest in February,” Zaluzhny said.

“All of this was completely forbidden. If the invasion had not happened, cases could have been opened against us. But most commanders agreed that there was no other choice,” said one general about the preparations for the invasion.

Ukraine is at war, and there has been little time or desire to return to the debate about whether more should have been done to prepare the population in advance. But that debate could still return, especially if Zelenskyy is pitted against Zaluzhny, the former commander-in-chief and current ambassador to London, who pushed for more action but was rebuffed in the upcoming elections.

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