- President Joe Biden said on Friday that people thought it was “exaggerating” for Russia to invade Ukraine.
- Prior to the invasion, reports said Zelenskyy thought Biden’s comments were creating panic.
- The U.S. national intelligence director said this week that Biden declassified the information to convince the Allies.
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President Joe Biden said on Friday that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy did not want to hear US intelligence indicating that Russia was about to invade Ukraine.
Biden made comments while talking to donors in Los Angeles, California, about his continued support in Ukraine, according to The Associated Press.
“Nothing like this has happened since World War II. I know a lot of people thought maybe it was exaggerating,” Biden told the media. He added that the US had data showing that Russian President Vladimir Putin was going to invade.
“There was no doubt about it,” Biden continued. “And Zelenskyy didn’t want to hear it.”
Before launching a large-scale invasion on February 24, Russia spent weeks accumulating its troops on the border with Ukraine, prompting speculation about whether or not they were preparing to invade, an accusation the Kremlin denied.
In late January, after U.S. officials said Putin was likely to invade soon, an anonymous Ukrainian official told CNN that Zelenskyy had told Biden to “calm the messages” about the invasion because it was creating panic. .
On Monday, U.S. National Intelligence Director Avril Haines said Biden even declassified information about the invasion of Russia in an attempt to convince skeptical allies that it would actually happen.
Since the war began, the United States has provided tens of billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine, including thousands of weapons.
Ukraine has successfully withheld invasions from some of its largest cities, including the capital Kyiv and Kharkiv, but fighting continues in the eastern Donbas region, where Russian forces have refocused.