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How Russia Fooled the West (and itself) About its Modern Military
It’s always a busy day at the CIA. But this early spring Wednesday was especially hectic on this particular floor: the CIA’s Russia and European regional analytic group.
The date was February 23, 2022, and the signals intelligence was coming in fast and furious.
Russia was about to invade Ukraine — perhaps within the next 24 hours.
Confidence is high.
Many months earlier, the agency warned the Biden administration that Russia was planning to invade in the early spring with as many as 175,000 Russian troops.
Based on U.S. and UK intelligence, Biden took the unprecedented step of sending CIA director Bill Burns to Moscow.
Burns’ message to Russia was simple and direct — don’t invade Ukraine.
Now, it appeared that the CIA analysts were about to be vindicated.
The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan was an intelligence disaster. Their failure to predict how quickly the Afghan government would fold in September of 2021 was an albatross around their neck — and why the Biden administration took them off his Christmas card mailing list that year.
They needed a win… And they were about to get it.
