{"id":1348422,"date":"2022-02-28T07:51:32","date_gmt":"2022-02-28T12:51:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1348422"},"modified":"2022-02-28T07:53:02","modified_gmt":"2022-02-28T12:53:02","slug":"the-path-to-ukraine-war-was-laid-over-months-of-plans-warnings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/the-path-to-ukraine-war-was-laid-over-months-of-plans-warnings\/","title":{"rendered":"The Path to Ukraine War Was Laid Over Months of Plans, Warnings"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fthe-path-to-ukraine-war-was-laid-over-months-of-plans-warnings%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1348422&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/ApNewsroom_Ukraine_Invasion_Path_to_War_44811.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<div>\n<p>The week before Russia attacked, a Ukrainian soldier peered through a periscope from the bottom of his trench. Mud seeped into his boots, his clothes and every crack in his gear as he walked the narrow space where he had spent his days for the past 10 months.<\/p>\n<p>Zakhar Leshchyshyn was just 23. He had no memory of Ukraine as anything but a fully independent country. But <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/russia-ukraine-vladimir-putin-volodymyr-zelenskyy-boris-johnson-business-08f569df695831ee467979527ea2e241\">now he was charged with helping to keep it that way<\/a>, posted at Ukraine\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/life-in-ukraine-ef862450d6ffe5efbc653abdc765035a\">eastern front line since early last spring<\/a>, when 100,000 Russian land and naval forces first encircled most of his country.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese wars for territory are madness,\u201d he said, \u201cbut probably this is human nature.\u201d<\/p>\n<article data-embed-button=\"video\" data-entity-embed-display=\"view_mode:media.full\" data-entity-type=\"media\" data-entity-uuid=\"bec11c28-8139-4cb2-8ebd-5e37c73bcdbf\" data-langcode=\"en\" class=\"embedded-entity\">\n<figure><figcaption><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/article>\n<p>Within days, Ukraine was engulfed by what the soldier in the trench saw as humanity\u2019s dark impulse. The largest invasion Europe has seen since World War II has imperiled a young democracy while <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/russia-ukraine-joe-biden-technology-business-russia-c2a7f35cfe6e3f13f939fcd002959e87\">risking geopolitical instability far beyond the flashpoints<\/a> of the new war.<\/p>\n<p>In the conflict\u2019s earliest days, <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/russia-ukraine-vladimir-putin-business-europe-8acc2106b95554429e93dfee5e253743\"> each side has managed to surprise the other.<\/a> Russia unleashed a broader, larger invasion than almost anyone had predicted. And Ukraine, at least by U.S. and other Western accounts, has put up a more tenacious fight than many thought possible against the neighboring superpower. Fortunes can turn at any moment.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s not apparent to us that the Russians over the last 24 hours have been able to execute their plans as they deemed that they would. But it\u2019s a dynamic, fluid situation,\u201d Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said Friday.<\/p>\n<p>And so it has been for much of the past year. Russia alternately added and subtracted troops along the border, diplomacy seemed to make progress until it didn\u2019t, Russian President Vladimir Putin seemed restrained, then not, then maybe, then not.<\/p>\n<p>The path to war was convoluted \u2014 but also inexorable.<\/p>\n<h4>An Early Marker<\/h4>\n<p>It was back on March 31 of last year when the U.S. military raised an alert of a \u201cpotential imminent crisis\u201d arising from Russian drills near the Ukrainian border. Not long after, Russian troops were <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/world-news-russia-government-and-politics-crimea-ukraine-e6e8d6c0792517f753fc774713d1fe44\">ordered back to their permanent bases and the sense of alarm eased.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>But those orders also required Russian troops to leave their heavy weaponry in Crimea and the Voronezh region bordering Ukraine, where it would already be in place if the forces returned \u2014 which they did. The reprieve was brief for Leshchyshyn\u2019s unit and for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who had tweeted that the redeployment \u201cproportionally reduces tension.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Soon afterward, U.S. President Joe Biden agreed to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva, a summit widely seen as a reward for suspending the drills. But by the end of summer, it was clear that Putin\u2019s military plans were just getting started \u2014 even if they hadn\u2019t quite taken shape yet.<\/p>\n<p>When Zelenskyy visited Washington on Sept. 1, he came away with a <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/europe-ukraine-acab622f12a3c2ed4af4aba853c4daf3\"> pledge of $60 million in military aid. <\/a><\/p>\n<h4>In the Trench<\/h4>\n<p>Leshchyshyn\u2019s life in the deserted front-line village of Zolote continued as before, circumscribed by the labyrinth of trenches he commanded. The monotony of four-hour shifts on guard was broken by periodic exchanges of fire with Russia-backed separatists, and by the news he caught on his mobile phone.<\/p>\n<p>Roots poked out along the walls of the trench, but they were never enough to hold up the mud when a shell exploded nearby. Those not on guard duty shored up the sides with hand shovels.<\/p>\n<p>When they returned to their basement barracks in a house with no roof, the same shovels scraped the congealed mud from their boots. When night fell, the village was dark and quiet enough that Leshchyshyn\u2019s men and the separatists sometimes shouted curses at each other from their respective trenches.<\/p>\n<p>By early November, the mud was back, thick enough to weigh down the soldiers\u2019 boots. So were the Russian troops \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/europe-russia-ukraine-f356c933c1ac8993aee383ed30d1e017\">90,000 of them again near the border<\/a>, with more on the way from all corners of the world\u2019s largest country.<\/p>\n<h4>Alarm in Washington<\/h4>\n<p>The warnings from the Biden administration grew more pointed, and for the first time, U.S. intelligence officials started sharing specifics with Zelenskyy, European officials and eventually the public.<\/p>\n<p>The White House realized that it was looking at the beginnings of what would probably turn into an enormous crisis by October. Officials were seeing a cascade of worrying intelligence strains, including troop movements, that suggested that Putin was looking to move on Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p>Biden wanted Putin to know what he knew. He sent CIA Director Bill Burns to Moscow to warn Kremlin officials that the U.S. was fully aware of their troop movements. The White House made the calculation that the CIA chief\u2019s travels, normally closely held, needed to be advertised far and wide.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe wanted it to be known that he was there and understood by the Russians that we were starting to put them on notice and that we were going to do so publicly as well as privately,\u201d said a senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.<\/p>\n<p>Soon after that trip, administration officials decided they needed to accelerate intelligence sharing. They also began discussions with allies about sanctions should Russia invade.<\/p>\n<p>In early December, national security officials shared information from an intelligence document with the press showing at least 70,000 Russian troops had massed near the Ukraine border. Much of the information could be gleaned independently but White House officials thought it was crucial to get the information out in the open \u201cwith U.S. government branding.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So began a name-and-shame campaign in which the White House national security officials widely distributed a series of plots they contend Putin was weighing to set a pretext for an invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p>Critics of U.S. intelligence \u2014 Russian officials among them \u2014 recalled past failures like the infamously false identification of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq nearly 20 years ago and the unexpectedly swift fall of Kabul last year.<\/p>\n<p>In mid-November, a senior European diplomat spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential briefings. The diplomat was unconvinced by U.S. intelligence findings.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe see the military build-up, at the same time, we don\u2019t have any intelligence that there\u2019s something like military action, or that Russians would be trying to become militarily active, so we don\u2019t share this opinion, even though the Americans have said so,\u201d the diplomat said. \u201cWe don\u2019t see that there is intention on Putin\u2019s part so far.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At NATO, Germany blocked efforts to help Ukraine acquire military equipment. France and Germany objected to launching NATO\u2019s crisis management system, but eventually relented at a NATO foreign ministers\u2019 meeting in Latvia on Dec. 1. The move was essentially symbolic. The system is used to identify whether there is a crisis and launch preliminary planning to respond.<\/p>\n<h4>Putin&#8217;s Guessing Game<\/h4>\n<p>With some satisfaction, Putin said the military buildup has caused a \u201ccertain stress\u201d in the West. \u201cIt\u2019s necessary to keep them in that condition for as long as possible\u201d to secure long-term security guarantees for Russia, he added.<\/p>\n<p>He laid down his demands on Dec. 15: a ban on NATO membership for Ukraine and other ex-Soviet nations, a halt to the deployment of NATO weapons in those countries and a rollback of NATO forces from Eastern Europe. Meanwhile Russian troops kept arriving in Belarus to Ukraine\u2019s north and on its eastern frontiers where heavy weaponry had been stockpiled since the spring.<\/p>\n<p>Zelenskyy continued to play down the troop movements, noting that Ukraine had been facing threats from Russia and the separatists since 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea. On Jan. 10, Russia\u2019s deputy foreign minister insisted there were \u201cno plans, intentions or reasons to attack Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. did not believe it.<\/p>\n<p>Two days later, the United States and NATO rejected Russia\u2019s demands, and the movement of troops and weapons accelerated. Ukrainian government websites went down en masse, many displaying a warning from the suspected Russian-linked hackers: \u201cBe afraid and expect worse.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On Jan. 20, Russia announced sweeping naval drills off the coast of Ukraine and <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/antony-blinken-jen-psaki-vladimir-putin-sergey-lavrov-congress-1df536e9a832830dc3bae2e89aef4116\">Biden said publicly he believed Russia planned an invasion. <\/a><\/p>\n<p>On Feb. 4, <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/russia-ukraine-sports-business-china-russia-b92f4d266b4d8d2e7711ab930c6e9fd1\"> Putin flew to Beijing<\/a>, ostensibly for the Olympic Games although Russian athletes were banned from competing under their nation\u2019s flag because of years of doping scandals. He and Chinese President Xi Jinping reaffirmed their support for each other\u2019s foreign policy, including Russia\u2019s backing of China\u2019s claim to Taiwan.<\/p>\n<p>The unspoken message: These two world powers were on the same page or a similar page, and China would not stand with most of the rest of the world against Putin\u2019s designs on Ukraine.<\/p>\n<h4>Macron Tries<\/h4>\n<p>By then, 150,000 Russian troops had all but surrounded Ukraine and the United States had all but abandoned hope for a diplomatic solution. French President Emmanuel Macron attempted a last-ditch intervention. Flying first to Moscow to meet Putin, where the men sat across an absurdly long marble table, then to Kyiv, Macron tried fruitlessly to stave off war.<\/p>\n<p>Publicly Macron said Putin assured him that Russia would not escalate the crisis. But privately he described the Russian leader as \u201cmore rigid, more isolated and fundamentally lost in a sort of ideological and security drift,\u201d according to a senior French official.<\/p>\n<p>The American warnings grew increasingly frantic, <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/cd62d3b5ac6f71e8d654a99de84799da\">but life in Kyiv \u2014 Ukraine\u2019s capital and its largest population center \u2014 continued as usual<\/a> because, Zelenskyy insisted, Ukrainians would not yield to panic.<\/p>\n<p>On Feb. 16, a Wednesday, Ukraine held a \u201cday of national unity\u201d after a date floated as the potential Russian attack failed to materialize. Russia\u2019s ambassador to the European Union, Vladimir Chizhov, accused Westerners of \u201cslander\u201d for alleging an invasion was afoot and joined other Russian officials in ridiculing Biden\u2019s prediction that it could start as soon as that Wednesday. \u201cWars in Europe rarely start on a Wednesday,\u201d Chizhov said sarcastically.<\/p>\n<p>But Zelenskyy ordered Ukrainian soldiers to be restrained and give Russia no excuses to attack. Shelling and gunfire at the front lines with the separatists increased exponentially, according to international monitors, but Ukrainian troops were told not to return fire.<\/p>\n<h4>Blinken: &#8216;It&#8217;s Unfolding&#8217;<\/h4>\n<p>On Feb. 17, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken laid out <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/russia-ukraine-colin-powell-media-united-nations-moscow-efee720c79feba739ddc49c850ccb009\">\u201cwhat the world can expect to see unfold.<\/a> In fact, it\u2019s unfolding right now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>First, he said, there would be a staged provocation. Then would come a theatrical high-level meeting of the Russian government, followed by a proclamation that Russia must defend ethnic Russians in Ukraine. Then, he said, the attack would begin, with Kyiv a main target. Events would largely, perhaps fully, prove him right.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve been warning the Ukrainian government of all that is coming,\u201d Blinken said, looking directly at the camera. \u201cAnd here today, we are laying it out in great detail, with the hope that by sharing what we know with the world, we can influence Russia to abandon the path of war and choose a different path while there\u2019s still time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On the night of Feb. 19, the separatist leaders released near-simultaneous videos announcing a general evacuation of women, children and the elderly. One of those pro-Russia separatists showed video of what he said was a car bomb exploding his personal vehicle \u2014 ostensibly, proof that Ukrainian troops were provoking a war.<\/p>\n<p>The destroyed 4X4, however, was a suspiciously older model and <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/russia-ukraine-technology-europe-russia-ebba0930160acb98b2e05617f332cec7\">metadata showed the videos were actually filmed three days earlier.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Putin summoned his top security officials and, in a dramatic pre-recorded meeting televised nationwide, asked them to explain one by one whether Russia should recognize the separatists and help them. One by one they agreed; there was little prospect that they would not.<\/p>\n<p>Hours later, the Kremlin released yet another pre-recorded video, this time of Putin alone, <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/russia-ukraine-europe-russia-poland-vladimir-putin-f00872897f338dbedd857cd1d880e9d3\">cataloging Russian grievances<\/a> against Ukraine, NATO, the United States and Europe. An independent Ukrainian nation, he said, was a fiction. Without evidence, he accused Ukraine of genocide and of seeking nuclear weapons. Russia, he insisted, had every right to attack such a country.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI would now like to say something very important for those who may be tempted to interfere in these developments from the outside,\u201d he added. \u201cThey must know that Russia will respond immediately, and the consequences will be such as you have never seen in your entire history.\u201d<\/p>\n<h4>Global Support But No Troops<\/h4>\n<p>The attack began before dawn on Feb. 24 \u2014 Thursday in Ukraine but, as it happens, still Wednesday in Washington.<\/p>\n<p>It opened with the firing of more than 100 land- and sea-based missiles in the first hours, said a senior U.S. official who was not authorized to be identified and spoke on condition of anonymity. The official said the main targets of the air assault were barracks, ammunition warehouses, and 10 airfields. Russian ground forces began moving in from Belarus around noon.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/russia-ukraine-vladimir-putin-business-china-asia-b57700241d650315db1eb0e8516ce2d6\">Sanctions from the U.S. and Europe came down <\/a> with hours, but Zelenskyy, in hiding in the besieged capital on Friday, pleaded for more.<\/p>\n<p>He spoke by phone with many foreign leaders. They expressed solidarity and offered help. None offered what he most wanted \u2014 troops to come to his country\u2019s aid and a no-fly zone to protect Ukraine&#8217;s skies.<\/p>\n<p>He told several of them these phone calls might be his last.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Ukrainian president started by saying he\u2019s reporting from a country where he doesn\u2019t know how long it\u2019s going to exist,\u201d Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer related from his call. \u201cAnd he\u2019s reporting as president without knowing how long he\u2019s going to be alive.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In an impassioned speech, Zelenskyy implored his people to be firm in their resistance.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis morning we are defending our state alone, as we did yesterday,\u201d he said. \u201cThe world\u2019s most powerful forces are watching from afar. Did yesterday\u2019s sanctions convince Russia? We hear in our sky and see on our earth that this is not enough.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Did Leshchyshyn, the young soldier, hear Zelenskyy\u2019s cry? Did he survive the first days of the war? It cannot be determined. He spoke to the AP in the trenches a week ago; he has not responded to messages since.<\/p>\n<p>___<\/p>\n<p><em>Chernov reported from Zolote, Ukraine, Hinnant from Paris, and Madhani and Woodward from Washington. Contributors included Associated Press writers Lorne Cook in Brussels; Nomaan Merchant and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington; Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow and Yuras Karmanau in Kyiv, Ukraine.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>    <a class=\"button hidden-lg-up button-expand\" href=\"denied:javascript:void(0);\">Show Full Article<\/a>\n  <\/div>\n<p>\n  \u00a9 Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The week before Russia attacked, a Ukrainian soldier peered through a periscope from the bottom of his trench. Mud seeped into his boots, his clothes and every crack in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1348422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1348422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1348422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1348422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1348422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1348422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1348422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}