February 20, 2022

"This afternoon, after a rare four-hour-long meeting of the National Security Council, President Joe Biden canceled a planned trip home to Wilmington, Delaware, tonight. The U.S. intelligence community says with high confidence that Russian president Vladimir Putin has ordered military units to proceed with an attack on Ukraine. The U.S. and the United Kingdom say that they expect Russia to create a “false-flag” attack on Russia, allegedly by Ukraine, that they will use as an excuse to invade.

Tonight, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Bathsheba Nell Crocker, told High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, the former president of Chile, that the United States has “credible information that indicates Russian forces are creating lists of identified Ukrainians to be killed or sent to camps following a military occupation. We also have credible information that Russian forces will likely use lethal measures to disperse peaceful protests or otherwise counter peaceful exercises of perceived resistance from civilian populations.”

A hallmark of this crisis has been the degree to which the U.S. has anticipated events by announcing to the world it has intelligence information laying out Russia’s next moves. This both enables NATO to get out ahead of Russian propaganda and warns Putin that his communications might be compromised, an idea that might give him pause before committing to invasion.

CNN White House reporter D.J. Judd identified those at the NSC meeting as Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, Homeland Security Advisor Liz Sherwood-Randall, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. Vice President Kamala Harris joined the group from Air Force Two on her way back from Munich, where she was representing the U.S. at the 58th Munich Security Conference, an annual conference on international security.

Russia continues to insist it is not planning an attack on Ukraine, although it has placed 150,000 troops at the Ukraine border, the largest military buildup in Europe since World War II ended. But the warming weather in Ukraine with the mud that it will bring does not bode well for an invasion, and Putin agreed today “in principle” to a meeting with Biden, an offer available only if Russia does not launch a new war.

Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky spoke yesterday in Munich, chastising Europe for being slow to recognize the danger of Russian expansionism, even as Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014. He warned that such imperialist aims historically have led to world wars unless they are stopped.

Zelensky vowed that Ukraine will fight if Russia invades again—it is still in the country from the 2014 invasion— but hammered home that Ukraine should not be begging for help: Ukraine shields Europe from Russia. Helping Ukraine “is your contribution into the European and international security for which Ukraine has been serving as a reliable shield for eight years now, holding back one of the largest armies in the world,” he said. “This is not a war in Ukraine, but a war in Europe.”...

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