‘Something Was Badly Wrong’: When Washington Realized Russia Was Actually Invading Ukraine

Tom Sullivan, deputy chief of staff for policy, Department of State: We were at the COP in Glasgow [on November 2] and met with President Zelenskyy — the secretary had to brief him on our intelligence that we had strong indications that Russia was preparing for a large-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Antony Blinken: The two of us, sitting almost knee-to-knee in a room on the margins of the summit meeting. It was very stark, very palpable. He took the information very stoically.

Tom Sullivan: They were clearly struck by how candid our assessment was. That was notable.

Antony Blinken: [That was] one of the most powerful moments for me.

Laura Cooper: As far back as November, we were gearing up in a significant way to make sure we were monitoring the situation incredibly closely, understanding the intelligence, gearing up to support Ukraine and reinforce our allies. Secretary [Lloyd] Austin put us on a vigorous battle rhythm — we were providing updates every single morning, at first it was by 7:30 a.m., and then it was by 6:30.

Amb. Michael Carpenter: I remember arriving in Vienna in late November of 2021, and most of my colleagues were talking about the quote unquote deliverables for the ministerial [OSCE’s decision-making body]. I remember being incredulous that this was what most people here at the organization were talking about, because all I wanted to talk about was the risk of a full-blown war in Europe that could be weeks away. It all seemed surreal — not that climate change isn’t crucially important for all of us, but it seemed we were on the precipice of this massive geopolitical catastrophe. There weren’t enough people convinced of the gravity.

Jake Sullivan: I was working in the White House when Crimea unfolded and the “ little green men ,” the early hours of confusion and fog of war. We had the benefit of being able to learn from that experience — to learn from the experience of the initial invasion into the Donbas in 2014, to really study the Russian playbook going as far back as Georgia . We have the benefit of the early warning of the intelligence, to make sure that we would not be caught on our back foot, but rather we’d be on our front foot — and pushing Russia in the information space onto their back foot.

Victoria Nuland, under secretary for political affairs, Department of State: Because I had seen our best efforts to forestall a violent choice by Putin fail in ’14, I was more prepared than many for the fact that he would do it again this time.

Avril Haines: We were increasingly accumulating a picture that made clear: “Yes, this was a real option that they were considering,” and as we were helping the policy community understand that, the Boss was saying, “OK, Tony, Jake, you guys, you need to go out there, and start talking to our partners and allies. We need to see if there’s any opportunity for us to shape what might happen.”

Gen. Mark Milley: There’s a series of briefings that we have with our NATO allies all through the fall. DNI Haines, Director Burns and myself all talking with our counterparts to be able to set that context.

Avril Haines: What I remember before the NATO engagement [in November] was them coming back and saying to the Boss: “They’re really skeptical,” like, “We’re going out there, and they don’t think that Putin is going to invade,” and him turning around and saying, “OK, you need to get out there. We need to start sharing intelligence and you have got to help them see that this is a plausible possibility, because that’s what’s going to help us to engage them in a way that allows us to start planning.”

Victoria Nuland: Everybody at the beginning was relatively skeptical — with the exception of the Canadians and the U.K., who were seeing the same intelligence that we were seeing because they’re Five Eyes — that he would actually take this step.

Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier: The Five Eyes is the oldest intelligence collaboration network that we have — we have very close partners with Canada, Australia, Great Britain and New Zealand. We also wanted to reach out to other traditional partners — France, Germany, other members of NATO. A portion of that was about convincing them of the intelligence we had and what we thought. In other cases, it was more collaboration on the intelligence they had and what they saw.

Liz Truss: We were sitting on very serious, good intelligence, but — for whatever reason — that wasn’t necessarily the shared view of what was going to happen. Our allies had a different view.

Dame Karen Pierce: We knew that the French and Germans had the same reports that we had. We were puzzled by their insistence that he would not invade. When I asked the Germans, they said they wanted to keep an open mind. Scholz has said it — they just were wrong. They hoped for the best.

John Sullivan, U.S. ambassador to Russia, Moscow: People had a hard time believing that there was going to be a major land war in Europe. “Yeah, maybe it’ll be like 2014-15 — there’ll be some ‘little green men,’ and there’ll be a minor incursion here, etc.” I was saying: “No. What they’re massing is not what happened in 2014-15. This is a World War II-style, or 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia-style military operation.” That’s what they had trouble wrapping their minds around.

Liz Truss: I don’t think any of us wanted to believe.

Jake Sullivan: I was very understanding, because an invasion of this magnitude was out of character for Putin, who had specialized in more hybrid, more limited military operations. It was something with grave consequences for the security of Europe and so hard to immediately wrap one’s mind around.

Jon Finer: It was, in many ways, a highly illogical and irrational thing for [the Russians] to do for all the reasons that have played out ever since and in the enormous cost that they have paid for, frankly, very little military gain.

Amb. Michael Carpenter: Did he really think he could occupy all of Ukraine? It still seems incredible today he could think he could achieve an occupation of a country of 44 million people, with whom he was at war for many, many years, who had no love lost for Russia. We were warning Russia both publicly and privately that if it invaded Ukraine that it would be a massive strategic miscalculation, using exactly those words.

Vice Adm. Frank Whitworth: Wherever we went, I’ve got a book that has the “Big Green Map” in it.

Amanda Sloat, senior director for Europe, National Security Council, White House: That map has taken on mythical status.

Vice Adm. Frank Whitworth: I don’t go anywhere without it; the chairman wouldn’t go anywhere without it. The map — even though it’s two-dimensional — becomes a great source of intelligence fusion, the prop you need analytically to tell the tale.

John Kirby: It was a classic military topographical map — it showed a general sense of the topography of Ukraine, particularly those areas where we knew operations were going to be conducted, and it gave us a working-level knowledge every day of where the positions were, where the major units were, what kind of units they were, where and when they were moving. It was updated routinely to reflect the battlefield positions.

Amanda Sloat: The map was generally brought out in Principals Committee meetings, spread out on the table, and then taken away. It was used in the Oval Office for briefings with the president. I never got an up-and-close look, because it was whisked in and out, but it speaks to the degree to which people wanted to understand the details of how this was going to play out.

“We didn’t want to inadvertently speed up the Russian clock, incentivize Putin, or give him a pretext to make a decision he had not made.” —Colin Kahl

Colin Kahl, under secretary of Defense for policy, Pentagon: There were debates in the fall about how much support was required, because we didn’t want to inadvertently speed up the Russian clock, incentivize Putin, or give him a pretext to make a decision he had not made. Us leaning too far forward could create dynamics either within the alliance or as we were trying to build world opinion against the Russians that made us look like we were the provocateurs.

Amanda Sloat: It got to the point where we had to say to the Europeans, “Fine, we can agree to disagree analytically, but let’s start planning as if we are right. If we are right, then we’re in a good place because we’ve got all our planning. If you’re right, that’s the best possible outcome because then there’s not going to be an invasion — at best, this will have just been a waste of time.”

Jon Finer: We eventually brought people around by bombarding them with information that you could not ignore.