![]() Mark Milley: It took about a week or two to put together this picture of a really significant, sizable Russian force. The alarm bells definitely went off.ĭaleep Singh, deputy national security adviser for international economics, National Security Council, White House: We thought we had quelled his appetite for territory by meeting him in Geneva and trying to address some of the strategic concerns he’d been raising, but then here we were again, with an even larger force. Scott Berrier: It looks very, very dark for the Ukrainians.Įric Green, senior director for Russia and Central Asia, National Security Council, White House: I was struck by the confidence and clarity that the IC had in this assessment. intelligence community, including CIA, what were unmistakable signs of a serious Russian buildup along Ukraine’s borders, and picking up intelligence that they’re planning for what seemed to be a major new invasion of Ukraine. I say, “OK, let’s see what the rest of the intel community has to say.”īill Burns, director, Central Intelligence Agency: We had begun to see across the U.S. I gave them a bunch of questions - next day they come back. Mark Milley: In September, they came to me with this map, and laid it out on my table they explained, this was different, sir, this looks different, this is bigger in size and scale and scope, the disposition, composition of the force, etc. When you see the amount of stuff that the Russians moved towards the Ukraine, and when they did that, that’s a pretty significant tell. Their happy spot is doing assessments on order of battle and many other things. Scott Berrier: You have a bunch of analysts here who are specialists in military intelligence - this is what they do. Frank Whitworth, director of Intelligence (J-2), Joint Staff, Pentagon: Some of the intelligence became quite compelling. Right about then we realized this is odd it was much bigger in scale and scope than the previous year’s exercise. Mark Milley, chair, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Pentagon : We’re out of Afghanistan by 31 August, and there was a planned Russian exercise called Zapad, and they started marshaling the troops for the exercise in the September time frame. secretary of State: The storm clouds were starting to gather many months before the invasion.Īvril Haines: Then we were starting to see this new buildup.ĭame Karen Pierce, British ambassador to the U.S., Washington: Something was badly wrong. When President Biden met with President Putin in Geneva, obviously the top story around that visit was the ransomware attacks and cyber, but a healthy amount of the discussion behind closed doors was about Ukraine.Īntony Blinken, U.S. Jake Sullivan: Part of the motivating impulse for making the proposal for the summit in Geneva was to try to create an alternative path that would involve Russia deescalating around Ukraine and us trying to inject some stability - not just into the U.S.-Russia relationship, but stability into the broader Ukraine situation. intelligence community really knows when Russia conducts exercises, and it was an exercise. Why do we know it was an exercise? Because the U.S. ![]() Cyber Command: We knew they weren’t going to invade in April 2021. ![]() Paul Nakasone, director, National Security Agency, and commander, U.S. Jon Finer: For obvious reasons, given the history of 2014, given the conflict that had been going on ever since, it raised real concerns about their intention. There was no other credible explanation for what they were up to. Jake Sullivan, national security adviser, White House: That was deeply alarming, because it was out of historical norms. At that point, the only military action that seemed plausible was a much smaller incursion. Putin is clearly considering military action on some level. There was definitely a moment where I recognized that this is not just a force buildup for diplomatic effect. Jon Finer, deputy national security adviser, National Security Council, White House: In the spring of 2021, we started to see a concerning buildup of Russian forces on the border with Ukraine.Īvril Haines, director of National Intelligence: In that April-March period, I’d seen it build up. The national defense strategy said, “Hey, the pacing threat is China, but Russia is this acute threat out there.” I always had that in the back of my mind - Russia is potentially very, very dangerous. I’ve been thinking about the Russians for a very long time. Scott Berrier, director, Defense Intelligence Agency: DIA is supposed to be the master sense-makers of militaries around the world - how they’re organized, trained, equipped, where they are, why they fight, when they would fight, what their doctrine is and what their leaders are all about.
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