how good is it But Vladimir Putin (70) managed to fool the world. Just a few days before the outbreak of war on February 24, 2022, many did not believe he would take an invasion seriously. Or did not want to believe it despite clear warnings.
Like Yves ruddy (62), former Swiss ambassador to Russia. iIn a February 20 Blick interview, he said, “I don’t think it will happen. And it irritates me when the American and British press sketch the threat of a Russian invasion.” About the warnings of the American «Newsweek» and the British «Daily Telegraphhe grumbled that the newspapers seemed to him “a cult that keeps proclaiming the end of the world.”
Former German leader Sahra Wagenknecht, 53, defended Putin to the end: he was not a “mad Russian nationalist who gets drunk on pushing boundaries,” she claimed before the invasion.
The Bundesrat had also misjudged the Russian president – or did not want his economic policy ruined by his clash of arms. As recently as January – just six weeks before the invasion, when the Russian army was already entering Belarus – he announced that he had signed a letter of intent for closer cooperation with Russia in the agricultural sector.
hope to the last
The Kremlin denied its invasion plans to the end. A week before his war order, Putin said: “We are ready to go down the road of negotiations.” And in Washington, Anatoly Antonov, 67, the Russian ambassador to the United States, said: “There is no invasion and no such plans.”
Until the last, French President Emmanuel Macron (45) tried to prevent a war. Four days before the invasion, an intensive telephone conversation took place between Paris and Moscow. From the Élysée Palace it was then said that US President Joe Biden (80) and Vladimir Putin agreed in principle to hold a summit, and US and Russian foreign ministers planned to hold talks on Thursday.
It has not come to that. When Putin proclaimed the independence of the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk acknowledged and proclaimed, even the last of the doubters knew that this must be the pretext for war and that invasion was definitely imminent.
The United States and Great Britain warned
Especially the Americans and British with their well-informed secret services have been warning about this for weeks. US President Joe Biden said six days before the war started that Putin would strike “in the next few days”. The Russians would by no means be satisfied with eastern Ukraine. Biden then: “We think they will attack the Ukrainian capital Kiev, a city of 2.8 million innocent residents.”
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson (58) also expected the worst three days before the invasion. In a BBC interview, he said: “I’m sorry to say the plan we’re seeing is of the magnitude of what really could be the biggest war in Europe since 1945.” He feared that Russia would stage an incident to encircle Kiev in a pincer movement.
How right Biden and Johnson were. At 04:00 (Swiss time) on Thursday, February 24, Putin launched an attack on Ukraine. Those who had doubted an invasion sheepishly had to admit they were wrong. Yves ruddy shortly after the outbreak of war to Blick about his misjudgment: «Limited action seemed conceivable to me. But certainly not what’s going on right now.”
Source: Blick
I am Amelia James, a passionate journalist with a deep-rooted interest in current affairs. I have more than five years of experience in the media industry, working both as an author and editor for 24 Instant News. My main focus lies in international news, particularly regional conflicts and political issues around the world.
